Dragons of a New Age

5 The Master of the Tower

Deep in the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas, a dark-clad man separated himself from the shadows. He stood before a moisture-slick wall from which jutted a lone, guttering torch. The flickering light danced over his black robe—a garment hanging in thick folds that looked much too large for his slight frame.

“You call to me,” he said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “You rouse me from my rest.” He sighed, and a train of heavy fabric trailed on the floor behind him as he lost himself once more in the darkness. His course took him up a winding stone staircase, chipped and crumbling from age. He didn’t need light to see where he was going. He knew every musty corner, expansive room, and secret corridor of the ancient tower by heart. He ran his fingertips along the cool stone walls that were covered with ornamental weapons and shields and portraits of old, long-dead wizards. He didn’t need to see the faces in the portraits, either. He knew the sorcerers when they breathed and studied in this tower, and he preferred his memories to the painted canvas—they did his friends more justice.

His measured steps took him ever higher, until he emerged in a room filled with bright morning sunlight that spilled in from several evenly-spaced windows. He glided toward the one overlooking the palace in the center of the sprawling city. In the distance was the Bay of Branchala, its brilliant blue-green waters beckoning invitingly. To the north was the massive Library of Ages, the grandest library on all of Krynn, and to the south was the Temple of Paladine. He idly wondered whether the latter would receive any more visitors now that the gods had abandoned the world.

He gazed at the city, at the many buildings that were in ruins—damaged by the battle against Chaos, by the energy and magic that had expanded beyond the Abyss. It looked to the watcher as if the battle had been fought here. No doubt, he suspected, other cities likewise had felt the repercussions of the war, their buildings and citizens scarred.

“What do you want?” he said to the air. He felt a soft breeze wash over his skin, and looked upon the translucent visage of a young man’s face.

“To warn you,” the image replied. “To share a dream.”

The black-cloaked sorcerer closed his eyes, and his mind relived Palin’s vision, blue scales and golden eyes filling his senses. After several long moments the haze vanished, the wispy cloud disappeared, and the sorcerer rushed away from the window. He hurried down the twisting stairs, stopping on each level to retrieve a few priceless baubles and magical trinkets.

The sorcerer worked diligently for many hours, collecting scrolls, magical weapons and armor, crystal balls and the like. All the while he mulled over the dragon from Palin’s dream and wondered why it wanted access to the Abyss.

All of the Tower of High Sorcery’s magic wouldn’t necessarily allow him to open the portal. Such an act would devastate the city, flatten all the buildings within at least a mile of the tower. Hundreds could be killed. Worse could happen if the dragon first turned the power of the magical items loose on Palanthas before using them to open the portal.

The battle with Chaos was over. Only death hovered in the Abyss now. What could the dragon want there, hope to accomplish there? Palin had told the sorcerer it didn’t matter. But it did, the sorcerer knew. He vowed to consider the matter later—after the magic was saved.

Not used to strenuous physical labor, the sorcerer was nearly exhausted by the time he had an impressive pile of objects gathered in one place deep below ground. His chest heaved as he regarded the hoard that twinkled in the torchlight.

“It is not everything,” he whispered, brushing a strand of sweat-soaked hair away from his eyes. “But it is the best and the most powerful, and it will have to do.” His slight frame shuddered and he leaned against the damp stone wall. “Old friend,” he said to the stone. “I shall miss you. We’ve... what’s that?” He cocked his head, ran his fingers along a seam between the bricks. “The dragon. He’s coming.”

He reached into the deep folds of his robe and produced a staff of polished mahogany. It was topped by a bronze dragon claw clutching a faceted crystal and fairly pulsed with energy. He traced his fingertips over the staff’s smooth surface, then raised it high before twice driving its end down against the stone floor.

A blinding blue flash filled the underground chamber. As the glow receded, the guttering torch illuminated the crumpled form of the sorcerer. The horde of arcane treasure was gone. “Safe,” the man whispered. His breathing was labored, and he used the staff for support as he slowly rose.

He struggled up the steps, his robes tangling his feet and causing him to falter. His trembling fingers brushed against the cool stones in a gesture of farewell.

“We have been together so long, you and I,” he whispered to the walls.

Outside, the first rays of the setting sun were touching the rooftops of the city and the trees in the Shoikan Grove. The guardians in the grove let him pass unchallenged. “Flee,” he whispered to them as he made his way to the gate and out onto the bustling city streets. “Flee or die.”

“Flee!” he called to the people, his voice rising.

At first the passersby ignored him, prattling amongst themselves about their purchases or discussing what they would cook for dinner. A few hovered outside the door to an inn, ogling a menu board in the window. But those nearest the sorcerer saw him lift the staff high into the air. They heard him speak words they couldn’t understand, and they felt a tremor beneath their feet.

“Run!” someone called.

The people moved back like a wave receding from the sand, leaving the dark-clad man standing alone before the tower. But few ran so far away that they couldn’t watch what was transpiring, their curiosity overcoming their common sense. Most took cover inside buildings, their faces pressed against the windows. Some huddled in doorways or under awnings.

His fist clenched the staff in a death grip and the words flowed furiously from his lips. His eyes glowed with an intense light, and the tower shuddered like a pained old man.

The sorcerer sobbed. His breath came in uneven rasps and tears welled up in his eyes. “Fall,” he urged. “Please, fall.”

Somewhere behind him he heard the loud chatter of a Palanthas group that had refused to take shelter.

“What’s he doing?” a woman cried.

“It’s magic!” a man barked.

“But magic is dead!” another called.

“It must be the staff!” retorted the man.

“Flee!” the sorcerer called to them. He drove the staff down into the ground repeatedly. “Down!” he shouted, “down!” And, as if in response, the cobblestones shook beneath his knees, and the tower quaked and groaned.

Screams erupted from behind the sorcerer. He barely heard the sound of retreating footsteps. The gawkers were no longer brave enough to watch. Then he heard nothing but the moaning of the tower as it started to fall. He looked up to see cracks appear in the sky above the tower; its invisible barrier was shattering like an egg. Shards of glass from the tower’s windows burst into the air and pelted the street below.

A spiderweb-fine crack appeared in the cobblestones between the sorcerer’s knees. It spread, racing toward Shoikan Grove and through the open gate. The crack began to widen. The ground vibrated, and the sorcerer watched through a haze of tears as stones from the grove’s wall were pitched into the still-widening fissure. The trees of the grove heaved and toppled into the crevice. The grass flowed into the crack like water, taking with it the wildflowers and berry bushes the sorcerer had once so carefully tended.

Pops and hisses cut through the cacophony, evidence that the tower’s magical wards and guards were being simultaneously released and obliterated by the quake.

The sorcerer grabbed his side, screaming. The sound was echoed by the tower as it collapsed upon itself. The blood-red minarets fell inward first, swallowed whole as the black marble ruins began to melt down to the ground.

Glass shattered from somewhere behind him, and he heard a child wail. An awning flapped and tore free from a building facade, flying past him to disappear into the black, molten mass.

He tried to stand, but the vibrating ground threw him onto his back. Looking up at the dust-heavy sky, he saw a shape that he could barely make out.

A large bird? No. The dragon.

The sorcerer rolled onto his stomach. Digging his thin fingers into the cracks between the cobblestones, he pulled himself along, away from the inward pull of the tower.

A great boom rocked Palanthas then, signaling the end of the Tower of High Sorcery. The reverberations continued to damage the building facades, shaking free balconies, chimneys, and roof tiles.

The sorcerer reached the side of a building and turned to see the large crevice in the ground seal itself, burying the remnants of the grove. His eyes followed the line of the fissure as it closed, racing toward the tower. But the line led his eyes only to a round spot of mirrorlike obsidian material. That was all that remained of the Tower of High Sorcery.

Coughs racked his body as he tried to steady himself. For an instant he wondered if the damage he had unleashed was worse than what the dragon would have done. But he knew otherwise. No one had died, that he was sure of. Not only was the tower’s magic beyond the dragon’s grasp now, but the contents of the Great Library had also disappeared. At the moment of the tower’s demise, the books simultaneously departed.

He looked at the flat, shiny black spot and thought of all it contained, the remnants of the tower and the paintings of the old wizards who had once studied there and walked by the sorcerer’s side.

“Goodbye,” the sorcerer whispered to the ruins as he huddled against the building’s cold stone wall.

In the sky above Palanthas, Khellendros raged. The tower was destroyed and its remains buried. His path to the Abyss was lost.

“Kitiara!” he cried.

Lightning streaked the sky and darted down to Palanthas’s cobblestones, shattering the sidewalk in front of an inn where a crowd huddled. Dark clouds gathered to blot out the setting sun, and a fierce storm began. Frightened citizens barred their doors as the rain started. It was soft at first, but its force quickly grew until the rain was pummeling the city. It washed away the dust and dirt from the magical earthquake and mingled with the sorcerer’s tears.