Divine Hammer

CHAPTER 13

Lattakay glistened in the silver moonlight. Cathan stood at the edge of Wentha’s terraced garden, looking out over the cliff at the glass statue of the Lightbringer. His heart twisted as his eyes turned again and again to the Bilstibo, sitting dark amid the harbor. For years he had avoided this place, afraid of what might happen when he and his sister met again. A foolish fear, he’d reasoned when the Kingpriest’s party left the Lordcity for the tourney. Nothing bad would happen.

Now Lord Tavarre lay dead, and so many others. The Knights of the Divine Hammer were in tatters. Beldinas … well, Beldinas’ failure was inexplicable.

Three days had passed since the bloodbath-three days of frustration, fury, and grief.

Cloths of mourning blue hung from Lattakay’s arches, fluttering in the sea breeze, honoring the fallen knights who lay in the city’s temple. Bands of wailing women roamed the streets, following Seldjuki custom as they stopped at crossroads and plazas to let out wild, warbling yells. Cathan had had little time to mourn, however. There were too many other things to be done. For the first day, he and his surviving men-for he was brevet commander of the order now, with the Grand Marshal and many other high-ranking knights slain-had worked tirelessly, keeping the fragile peace. The folk of Lattakay had come close to rioting that first night. Brawls had broken out as people tried to flee the arena’s island. The knights had all been tired and sore at heart, but they had done their duty, keeping folk from killing each other, then enforcing the curfew the Patriarch imposed to get people off the streets.

After the first day, there was no more trouble. Still, the knights did not rest. At Cathan’s command, they rode out of the city in small bands, searching for signs of the quasitas.

They came and went, armed for battle, scouring the hills for miles around, returning only so they could collapse at their barracks for a few hours of restless sleep-if they were lucky.

Nightmares plagued many in the Divine Hammer, dreams filled with flapping wings and the screams of lost friends. Some didn’t even bother trying. Sir Marto, for one, had refused to return to Lattakay, combing the wilds day and night, afraid to sleep.

Cathan did not dream of the battle or of the men who died. Instead, whenever he shut his eyes he found himself floating above Krynn, looking down upon Istar and its jeweled cities, shining in the night. Each night he watched as the burning hammer fell upon the land, striking with a thunderclap that left him sitting up in bed, sweat-soaked, listening to the thumping of his heart.

It had happened again tonight, and so he’d come out here to the gardens, knowing he would not have another moment of peaceful slumber before dawn. He leaned against the garden wall, quietly observing Lattakay, his thoughts a maelstrom. So distracted was he that he didn’t hear footsteps on the crushed-stone path until they were nearly upon him.

He whirled, his hand going to where Ebonbane should have been, grasping at air for a moment before he realized he’d left the blade in his chambers.

“Blossom,” he murmured.

Wentha stood beneath the drooping branches of a star-bloom tree, her face grave. In her hands she held a silver wine goblet. She extended it wordlessly, and Cathan took it.

“The dream again?” she asked as he drank.

He nodded. “It’s never been this bad,” he said. “I haven’t had a good night’s rest since-since-” He broke off, trembling.

“I know,” Wentha said. “Neither have I. Gods, Cathan, the tournament… It’s my fault this happened.”

Cathan started. “No!” he said sharply. Setting the goblet down on the wall, he took her hands in his. “Don’t say that. The only one to blame is whoever sent those creatures. You were trying to do something good, that’s all.”

She smiled, the same smile that had broken his heart again and again when they were children. She stepped into his arms, and he held her close, his eyes stinging with pain and affection.

“Find him,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “I want to see the person who did this suffer, as he made us suffer.”

“I’m doing what I can, Wentha.”

“Not all.”

He pulled back. She turned away from his white stare, but he saw the meaning in her face. “No,” he said. “Not the sorceress.”

“You’d be dead too, Cathan,” she retorted, “if it hadn’t been for her.”

He said nothing in reply, a frown creasing his face. What she said was true, but…

“Quit being stubborn,” Wentha pressed. “Ask her for help.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “She’s a Red Robe. I’m sworn against magic. I’ve spent my entire life opposed to her kind.”

“She saved your life.”

He opened his mouth to argue more, but his heart wasn’t in it. Instead, he sighed. “If it will make you happy,” he said, “I’ll talk to her.”

“Happy?” she repeated, bitterly. “The only thing that would make me happy would be if I woke up and found this was all a bad dream.” With that, she turned and walked away, back up the terraces toward the manor. Cathan watched her disappear, then turned and looked out again over Lattakay. The fog was descending, making a smear of Solinari and hiding the harbor’s outer reaches. The arena hovered in a sea of gray, like some ghost, then the mists overtook it, and it was gone.

Scowling, he turned away from the city and headed up the path himself. He did not go into the house, however, but past it, through the manor’s gilded gates. Out in the city’s quiet streets, he turned north, toward the cathedral. There was one there, he knew, who would be awake as well.

The Lightbringer was in the worship hall, kneeling before the altar. He had spent much of the past several days there, praying to the god. Behind him lay the knights’ bodies, arrayed in full mail and grasping their weapons, which they would bear with them into the afterlife. They should have lain upon stone biers, but there weren’t enough to accommodate all of the dead, so the clerics had arrayed them on every surface, except for the altar itself: pews, buttresses, even some of the smaller shrines, cleared of candles and idols to make room. The spicy scent of the herbs and oils the priests had used to protect the knights’ flesh from rot hung heavy in the air as Cathan stepped through the tall, golden doors and genuflected toward the platinum triangle of Paladine.

He stood still for a moment, watching. Beldinas’s head was bowed, his hands pressed to his lips. His words were too soft to hear from across the worship hall, so Cathan didn’t bother to try. Instead, he made his way among the dead, pausing when he saw a face he recognized. Here was Sir Erias, the lines of pain that had creased his face carefully smoothed away; there, a white shroud covered Lord Barlan’s savaged remains; further on, Sir Pellidas. A dark stain marked his tabard where Marto, following the Karthayan custom, had poured a libation of wine upon him. In the candlelit room, it looked like blood.

Finally, he reached the bier at the head of the rest, and stopped, standing very still as he stared at Lord Tavarre. He barely recognized the Grand Marshal. But for the scars running across the body’s pallid cheek, he might have thought it another man.

“I never saw him at such peace,” said the Kingpriest’s musical voice. “Not even at court. He was always frowning or laughing, it seemed.”

Cathan glanced up. Beldinas walked toward him, hands clasped within his sleeves. The Miceram glittered on his brow. At first glance, he looked as he always had-but when Cathan looked closer, there was something different. Something about his eyes-they seemed darker, troubled.

It’s fear, Cathan realized with a jolt. He’s afraid.

He had faced darkness and evil at Beldinas’s side before-the living dead, vast armies, even a demon from the depths of the Abyss. In all that time, he had never seen the Kingpriest frightened. Cathan shivered, turning back to Tavarre.

“He died fighting, at least,” he murmured.

Beldinas drew up beside him, sighing. “I tried to save them. I truly tried.”

Cathan looked at him, suddenly understanding. It wasn’t the quasitas who had unnerved him. It was his failure. For the first time, the Lightbringer had met a power that thwarted his own.

“I know, Holiness,” Cathan said.

“No. I don’t think you understand,” Beldinas replied, his eyes brimming. “For twenty years I’ve fought to drive evil from this empire. Now this. Everything I’ve done, all I’ve worked for-what does it mean, if something like this can happen?”

Fear and doubt, Cathan thought, his disquiet growing. What has happened to the holy man I knew?

“The one who did this must be destroyed,” Beldinas went on. “He, and all who are like him.”

“Yes, sire.” Cathan nodded. “That’s why I wanted to speak with you … ”

“You want my permission to seek Lady do Cirica’s aid.”

Cathan blinked, taken aback. Despite the fear in his eyes, Beldinas favored him with an indulgent smile.

“It is plain that your knights need help,” the Kingpriest said, “and if the one who summoned the quasitas has the strength to guard them from me, then he can hide them from my sight as well. That leaves us little choice.”

“But sorcery-” Cathan began.

“I do not like magic any more than you,” replied Beldinas, “Yet if our enemy uses magic against us, perhaps it is fitting that we do the same. Clearly, he won’t be expecting it. You have my leave to ask Lady do Cirica for any assistance that she is willing to render.”

“Holiness.”

Beldinas’s head snapped up, his eyes blinking as he roused himself. He hadn’t been asleep but had come close, drowsing as he prayed by the knights’ bodies. Alarmed, he half-rose from the cushioned kneeling bench, then stopped himself when he saw who it was.

“Quarath,” he said, putting a hand to his forehead.

The elf stood a respectful distance away, a thoughtful look on his face. Everything about him, from his golden hair to his silver robes, was immaculate as always, and his expression bore little of the haggard, weary look that had settled on so many since the massacre. In his hands was an old book with a cover of cracked green leather, decorated with gold leaf that had partly worn away.

“Holiness,” he said again. “I did not mean to disturb you. I can return later.”

The Kingpriest shook his head as Quarath turned to go. “No, Emissary,” he said, turning from the altar. “It is all right. The god can do without listening to my voice for a while. What is the hour?”

“Just past Midwatch, sire.” The elf nodded toward the stained glass windows, shining with red moonlight, then stepped forward.

“I have brought the text you requested. We are fortunate the priesthood had a copy here-the library in this place is paltry, compared to the Sacred Chancery.”

Beldinas’s eyes lit hungrily as they fell upon the tome. He had asked Quarath to search for it earlier in the day-the Histories of Movani, chronicling the empire’s earliest years, before the Kingpriests rose to power.

“Excellent,” he said, then turned, walking to an alcove at the edge of the hall. “Come. We will read it together.”

Quarath followed, book in hand. At Beldinas’s gesture, he set the tome upon a white stone lectern, then went to shut the silken drapes. When he turned back, the Kingpriest had opened the book and was turning its brittle, yellowed pages with a gentle hand. The script was in the church tongue, with antique calligraphy and a crudeness to its illumination that bespoke its age. Even had he been an elf, the scribe who copied out this book would have been dust long ago.

“What do you seek, Holiness?” Quarath asked.

“Precedent.” Crackling, the pages continued to turn. Beldinas did not look up. “There was another time, long ago, when the Church came into conflict with those who wield magic. Ah, here it is.”

He stopped, pointing to a passage accompanied by a simple illustration of several skeletal warriors, wielding swords and spears. Quarath leaned closer, his eyes narrowing as lie read the text.

Fe oro 389 LA, fe Gasiro Lannis Filenfas bulfo, migel punfo isegid beston…

In the year 389 LA, in the reign of Emperor Lannis the Blind, there came a great woe form the west. In the wilds beyond the empire, a sorcerer of the Black Robes named Salius Ruven had dabbled in the foul arts of necromancy. His mind bent on plunder and slaughter, he defiled the tombs of the dead and worked his dark arts upon the bones within, making them whole and giving them strength to walk the earth again. For years he had done this in secret, amassing an army in caverns beneath the Khalkist Mountains without the knowledge of another living soul.

When his army was large enough, he gave the order for it to march upon Istar. This they did, bringing death with them. Needing neither food nor sleep, they moved with horrible speed. The imperial legions were no match for them, and the holy powers of the clergy of no avail. After every battle, Salius raised the corpses of the slain, bolstering his might. By the time it neared the Lordcity itself, the undead host was far larger than when it set forth.

In that dark hour, the emperor sent Eldan, the First Son of Paladine, to the Tower of High Sorcery. As sorcery had made Salius’s army, Lannis was sure it could unmake it as well. The First Son appeared before the Tower to cry their aid in saving the city. But the wizards would not raise a hand on the empire’s behalf against one of their own. They turned Eldan away and shut themselves behind gate and grove. Three times Eldan returned to repeat his offer, but the sorcerers would not hear him. With doom fast approaching, the emperor chose to rely upon steel instead of spellcraft. His own battalions shattered, he sent forth his fastest ship for Palanthas, with a plea to the Solamnic Knights …

Beldinas turned the page, then another. “The tale goes on at some length about the battle. Ruven’s host laid siege, but the Knights answered Lannis’s call. They fought for two days without pause, but when they were done, the undead were destroyed, and Salius’s head was set above the Lordcity’s western gates, mounted on a spike. But that doesn’t concern us.” He stopped again, this time at a page illustrated with the Tower with its familiar bloody fingertips. “It’s what happened after that is pertinent.”

When the last of the undead were destroyed, the eyes of the people turned to the Tower.

Many called for war against the wizards, but the emperor and the First Son both knew that weakened as it was by the undead, Istar could not pay the cost of such a campaign. Instead, Eldan went to the Tower and piled the remains of Salius Ruven’s soldiers before the grove.

“Workers of magic!” he proclaimed, “you have betrayed us-you who should have fought to protect this city. If sorcery will not befriends with Istar, then Istar will not befriends with sorcery. Remain within your Tower, but know this: If you act against us again, the next bones piled here will be your own.”

Quarath stepped back, looking at Beldinas. “So that’s why the wizards are so hated,” he said.

“It is one reason,” the Lightbringer replied. “There are others. It was a wizard, Galan Dracos, who led the Queen of Darkness’s forces in the Dragonwar a thousand years ago. Kurnos the Deceiver used magic against me when he sought to usurp the throne. And magic was certainly behind what happened at the Bilstibo. Evil and sorcery are seldom far apart, Emissary-and if the wizards have turned against Istar again, we may need to make good on First Son Eldan’s promise.”

He shut the book, his strange blue eyes fixed on Quarath. The elf met his gaze squarely.

“You realize, Holiness, that you are talking of holy war.”

The Kingpriest nodded, his voice turning to iron. “If it comes to it, yes. This bloodbath might only be the first part of a greater plan. If the wizards want war, they shall have it.”