Divine Hammer

CHAPTER 19

The burning worked its way up his leg, his robes feeding the flames so they crept higher, quicker. Skin blackening and peeling away; gobbets of flesh dropping off to sizzle amid the tinder. Oh, Nuitari, the pain …

Andras meant, at the last moment, to curse Paladine, the Kingpriest, and the Divine Hammer, to wish death on every Istaran who cheered his own. He could feel the world falling away, the pain growing, the sounds and smells fading. He had often wondered what death felt like, those last moments when the soul clings to the body. A kind of peace settled over him-or perhaps that was just because he was beginning to black out from lack of air.

There was one way to be sure. He took a breath.

The flames made a cinder of his tongue, split open his palate, rushed down and down, filling his lungs. It was worse than he expected, worse than he’d thought possible, like a sun trying to kindle in his breast. He threw back his head and screeched, but after a heartbeat the flames found his vocal cords, and the scream turned into a bubbling hiss.

Still it went on, and he knew, even as his heart began to burn, that it would be like this for a long, long time….

He awoke with a whimper, phantom pains still twinging as the dream dissolved in his mind. He was standing up, it surprised him to see, propped by some invisible force that coursed around him. The same force held him paralyzed, unable to move his arms or legs.

Light pooled around him, a narrow beam shining down from some place he couldn’t see. All else was blackness, a great sea of it that could have ended after an arm’s length … or gone on forever. He wondered if his feet were even touching the ground. He couldn’t tell.

Perhaps I’m dead, he thought. Most folk, even those who walked the dark path, believed in an afterlife, but some heretical mystics spoke of the Great Void that awaited men’s souls when they died. Maybe they were right-maybe there was only nothingness, and being aware of it was his damnation. He shuddered-an eternity thus would be a torment greater than any fire.

“He stirs.”

The voice was low and rasping, like a snake slithering over sand. Something in the shadows moved-a patch of darkness splitting away from the rest and hobbling toward him. It was short and bent, barely taller than a dwarf. Black cloth draped over its hunched back, and it leaned on a short, crooked staff tipped with glittering jet. From the depths of its hood, it peered up at him: a wizened, hairless face-gray, spotted, toothless. One eye had gone milky-blind, but the other survived, a pale, rheumy orb regarding him with untainted malevolence.

“Ysarl,” Andras croaked.

The stooped Black Robe nodded. Ysarl the Unkind was the head of the Black Robes, the oldest and mightiest in that order-except Fistandantilus. His cruelty was legendary, even among his brethren, and though he was more than a century old-far more, some claimed-his mind was as sharp as an elven sword. He regarded Andras with his good eye, lips pursed with displeasure.

“Nusendran’s apprentice,” he hissed. “You’ve caused us a great deal of trouble, for one so young.”

Us? Andras thought. He frowned, glancing around. The pool of light was spreading, and there were shapes at its edges now, looming on all sides. This was not the afterlife, then-but what? He thought back, fighting past the burning dream to what had come before.

Memories flooded his mind: the arena, the stake, the knights binding him, the Kingpriest’s voice condemning him to die-then, something else. Violet smoke, geysers of it so thick he couldn’t see his own feet beneath him-and hands, darting out of the murk to seize him, pull him down from the stake and spirit him away to-where? What was this place?

Then, like a slap across the face, it came to him. This was the Hall of Mages, in Wayreth.

The Order of High Sorcery had stolen him back.

The light widened a bit more, and he saw them now: the Conclave, sitting in a ring about him. White, Black, and Red Robes all regarding him with open contempt. He fought back the urge to cringe beneath their glare as Ysarl leaned in close, prodding him with a bony finger.

“You are with us now, boy,” the lord of the Black rasped, his face so close that his stinking breath nearly gagged Andras. “For now, at least. You know why, don’t you?”

He was supposed to be intimidated, but he wasn’t. He had studied under Fistandantilus. Beside the Dark One, even Ysarl’s attempts to be fearsome seemed like a child playing at ogres-and-goblins.

Andras’s lip curled. “To thank me for striking at the knighthood that burns anyone who wears the Black?”

In the gloom, some of the archmages snickered. Ysarl gave them a withering look, then turned back to Andras. “We gave you no permission to strike such a blow,” he snapped. “It is not what we want.”

“Why not?” Andras replied. “The Kingpriest’s knights would exterminate us all. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They burned my master! Must I get no satisfaction for that?”

“Not without my consent!” said another voice, like the crack of a whip. Andras turned his head to face the high-mage’s seat. Vincil glared down at him, his face a thundercloud.

“This issue affects the entire order.”

“Yes,” Andras said. “It does.”

A murmur ran through the hall at that. Most of the archmages muttered disapproval, but Andras heard notes of sympathy too, mainly among the Black Robes, but also a few among the Red. Ysarl and Vincil, however, both looked displeased. The highmage silenced everyone in the hall. He rose from his seat, stepping into the light.

“You’re proud that you’ve brought us to the edge of war with Istar?”

“If that is what must happen, to stop the Divine Hammer from murdering the Black Robes,” Andras replied, “then yes. I only wish someone had chosen to act sooner, before my master died. Are you such cowards, that you will let the Lightbringer’s dogs exterminate us without fighting back?”

The question hung in the silence, ringing off the walls. No one spoke. All looked to Vincil, who stood rigid, the muscles of his jaw twitching. A dark line appeared between the high-mage’s brows, and his eyes glittered with inner light. His pace, when he stepped forward, was careful, measured. Ysarl shuffled aside to let him draw close to Andras.

“Do not call me a coward again,” he said, the softness of his voice more threatening than the loudest shout. “Ever. Do you wish to know why I don’t want this war, boy?”

Andras swallowed. Vincil’s hard gaze made him quail, where Ysarl’s menace had not. He managed a nod.

“Because we would lose.”

Another mutter rippled among the archmages. Vincil quieted them with a single upraised finger, his gaze never leaving Andras.

“What do you expect?” he continued. “We are few, and the people of Istar are many. The Divine Hammer is only a part of the danger-the common folk hate us as much as anyone. If the Kingpriest ordered it, they would hunt down every wizard in the empire, no matter what robes they wore. That is why I don’t want a war, you insolent fool.”

Andras flushed, feeling the Conclave’s anger. He remembered the mob in the Bilstibo, mocking and loathing him when the knights chained him to the stake. If the Kingpriest had told them to, he was sure, the people would have torn him to pieces with their bare hands.

He bowed his head, letting out a ragged breath. “Perhaps you are right,” he murmured.

“I didn’t think.”

“No, you didn’t,” Vincil pressed. “You never thought about what you were doing, did you? And now I must make peace, whatever the cost. First, though, there is something we must know. Who trained you, after Nusendran? Who taught you to summon the quasitas?”

Andras looked up at the highmage, his eyes wide. He thought of Fistandantilus, who had saved his life, given him the power he craved, offered him the chance for revenge. He thought of what the Dark One would do, if he betrayed him. It would make the burning that haunted his nightmares seem like a summer’s day. Terror caught him in its claws, and slowly squeezed.

“No,” he gasped. “I won’t tell you. Don’t ask me that.”

“Don’t be an idiot, boy,” Ysarl said. “We will learn the truth from you, one way or another-and the other will not be pleasant.”

Andras shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. Tears leaked down his cheeks. “No,” he wept. “No, no, no …”

“Very well,” said the highmage. He sighed, resigned. “Ysarl.”

The old Black Robe began to chant soft, spidery words. Andras opened his eyes, his brain screaming at him to somehow flee. His body hung limp, however, suspended by whatever force held him fast. Caught, he could only watch Ysarl make passes through the air, drawing down power from the black moon.

“Ea kelgabon murvani ngartud lo purvanonn … ”

The magic coursed through the hall, focused on the shard of jet on the tip of Ysarl’s staff. Black light shone around the jewel, writhing like a nest of serpents-whipping, thrashing, twining about one another, growing more solid with each moment. Andras watched them form, horror twisting his bowels. Vincil looked on with tight lips, as did the rest of the archmages-even those of the White Robes, who normally would have cried out against such a dire spell.

I am a renegade, Andras thought. They care nothing for me.

At last Ysarl reached the end of his incantation. A cold leer twisting his mouth, he extended his staff toward Andras’s pale face.

“No,” Andras moaned.

The tendrils struck, lashing out in a sudden motion to seize his head. They were cold and damp, like something pulled from a rock far beneath the sea. They reeked of decay.

Tighter and tighter they grasped, covering his eyes, working their way into his ears, his nostrils, his mouth … Some had barbs that dug into his flesh, others suckers that pulled at his skin.

He was nearly suffocating, the rancid taste of the tentacles thick in his mouth-and now, amid it all, a new sensation, not one in his body, but inside his head. The magic was forcing its way into his mind, tearing through his memories, his wishes, his fears, inspecting them one at a time and shoving them aside. Each was a silver needle, plunged deep into his brain. He gurgled, blood trickling from his nose. Please, he begged silently.

Sweet Nuitari, stop!

Deeper, the tentacles probed. All he was … all he’d ever been … they pushed through it. Deeper, deeper … heedless in their search for the one thing the Conclave wanted, the secret of his master. Deeper …

They found it, and everything went mad.

A shriek tore through Andras’s head, so loud and piercing he was sure his skull would crack. The tentacles went rigid, bulging as a fresh power coursed through them … then, with a horrid sound, they burst. Greasy gray ichor flew everywhere, spraying Vincil, Ysarl, and Andras alike. The highmage stumbled back, gagging. Andras retched as the tendrils in his mouth erupted.

Ysarl, however, simply stood where he was, frozen, his lips pulled back in a horrible rictus grin. His fingers clamped around his staff as the last tendrils ruptured-then, with a crack that shook the Hall of Mages, his staff exploded.

And so did he.

Around the chamber, the archmages cried out as Ysarl the Unkind died. His robes shredded, soaking with blood, and scraps of flesh and splinters of bone rained down in a wide circle around where he’d stood. Already weakened by the tentacles, Andras nearly passed out as bits of the lord of the Black splattered him. What little remained where Ysarl had been standing poured onto the floor.

Dripping red and grey, Vincil stared at the wet rags that had been one of the most powerful wizards on Krynn. Slowly, the highmage’s eyes rose-showing white all around-and fixed on Andras. His mouth hung open.

“Who-” he began.

He got no further. In that moment, a ringing sound filled the hall, and silver light blazed with it. Amid the glow, Andras blinked in amazement. Once again magic surged through him, and low, frigid laughter filled the air, but he knew this magic and welcomed it. Around him the blood-drenched Hall of Mages wavered, then faded away. The Dark One had found him at last.