Divine Hammer

EPILOGUE

Fifthmonth, 943 I.A.

The images would not go away.

Daltigoth, blackened by smoke, ashes and stone blown outward from a crater that gaped like a dying man’s scream. Men and women picking through the rubble, searching for the dead. Plagues of bloodflies and packs of feral dogs searching for other reasons.

Losarcum was worse. The stone blasted to gravel or melted like wax. Great chasms torn through the earth, their bottoms too deep to measure. A pool of black glass, the reflection of the lost obsidian needle trapped in its depths. Nothing moved, save for the occasional carrion bird circling above. Losarcum had become a city of the dead, a cursed place. In the tales of the desert folk who had once peopled it, such places were for ghouls who devoured the flesh of men. This was no tale, however. The City of Stone was home to nothing now.

Not even the spiders and snakes that usually ran rampant in the Sun’s Anvil.

My fault, thought Andras.

He lay in the darkness of the cave, too weak to rise. The water in the Pit of Summoning kept him from dying of thirst, but hunger had emaciated him, and trackless time alone in the dark had shattered his wits. His cheeks were sunken, his ribs poked against his skin, his hair and beard were wild. He had no idea how long he had been here, trapped. Long enough to have disposed of the quasitas, killing and eating them to sate his hunger. They had precious little meat, though, and tasted of brimstone and putrescence. Their bones littered the cave, cracked open, the marrow sucked out.

He’d lived in darkness for a long time-long enough to explore the whole place with his fingertips, memorizing every outcrop, every crack in the stone. Exploring had given him something to do, even as his faith that Fistandantilus would return dwindled. When, finally, he began to accept that the Dark One had abandoned him for good, he’d still clung to the wild hope that, one day, he would see again.

Then the day came, and he wished for blindness again.

When he saw it there, glimmering in the darkness, he’d been sure it was madness: the image of Daltigoth, standing proud at the meeting of its two rivers. The Tower erupting in a torrent, smashing the city, leaving it in flames. Losarcum was the next image-somewhere between two and four days later, was his best guess. It fell too, destroyed as its Tower exploded. The stranded survivors, horribly twisted by the unleashed magic, dwindled each day, until none remained beneath the baking sun. The two images stayed with him, glimmering in the shadows. He would have ripped out his own eyes to be rid of them, but the ruined cities remained even when he shut them.

He bided, each day an agony as he awaited whichever city would be next-Palanthas, probably, with Istar saved for last. No more images appeared, however, and winter had turned to spring. Daltigoth’s trees came into leaf, and the cacti around Losarcum burst into flower. That time was well past now, and the days wore on toward summer as Ergoth’s fields grew rich and green. Still no other images had come, which could only mean that both sides had agreed to a truce. The events he’d launched with his attack on the Divine Hammer at Lattakay were coming, at last, to an end.

He’d tried suicide. He’d walked to the edge of the summoning pool, intent on throwing himself in. He had grabbed up two sharp stones to pound them against his temples with all his might. He had made a crude blade out of quasito bone, to open his wrists or throat.

Each time, though, he’d gotten to the verge of doing the deed, then pulled back. He couldn’t go through with it, no matter how strongly the desire burned within him. Another compulsion always stayed him, forcing him to stop at the last moment. Finally, he could do nothing but lie broken, too far gone to do anything but stare at the ruins of the two fallen Towers and sob until his throat was raw.

“Nuitari,” he wept, over and over. “I did not mean this to happen. I only wanted revenge. .”

“And so you have it,” hissed a voice in the shadows one day.

He knew the voice, even as he rolled over to see better. He couldn’t feel the chill of Fistandantilus’s presence-but then, he couldn’t feel anything at all. Nonetheless, there was tin-hooded figure of the Dark One, just a step away.

“The knighthood you despised is smashed, Andras,” Fistandantilus said. “The last of the Order of High Sorcery flees into hiding, even now. If either recover, it will not be for a very long time. You should rejoice, my pupil-you have succeeded.”

Andras knew the Dark One was right. This was what he had hoped for. Victory, however, felt hollow.

“I wish this had never happened,” he croaked, his voice like an ancient hinge. “I wish I could take it all back.”

Fistandantilus only chuckled. “There are few prayers men speak more than that one, boy. Not even the gods can undo what has already been done, though.” He stepped forward, his robes whispering in the dark. “Now … now that I have helped you achieve what you desired most, it is time for you to repay me.”

Andras cringed as the Dark One loomed above, but there was nothing he could do.

Whimpering, he could only twitch while Fistandantilus crouched down beside him.

Eye of Night, watch over me, Andras prayed silently, though he doubted even Nuitari could save him. “What are you going to do?”

“That is the wrong question,” Fistandantilus said, shaking his hooded head. “What you should be wondering is, what you’re going to do.”

Hands, gnarled with age, reached out at the ends of billowing black sleeves. Andras whimpered, his mind white with fear as the Dark One’s fingertips pressed against his skin.

Each was like a spike of ice. He imagined he could feel his skin withering beneath them. He shut his eyes, willing this nightmare to end, for it all to simply go away, but it did not.

Instead, a new image formed within him, brighter and more vivid than the ones of Daltigoth and Losarcum. Another city … another Tower … one more thing Fistandantilus wished him to do.

Andras fought very hard, for quite a long time.

The gates were slender and golden, decorated with a delicate latticework and topped with bejeweled points. On another building, they would have seemed laughably precious, doubly so the gem-encrusted lock into which Merroc slid the tiny silver key. This was no ordinary lock, however. Blue sparks sprang from it as it sealed itself shut, and a sound like a harp with strings of lightning filled the air. Nor were the gates ordinary, any more than the proud trees that grew about them were natural oaks. This was the Tower of Palanthas, the last bastion of High Sorcery outside the seclusion of Wayreth Forest-but only for the moment. For today the order was turning over control of it to mortal men.

Merroc had not expected to be highmage. It had been thrust upon him after the Tower of Istar fell into the church’s hands. Burdened by her grief over Losarcum and Daltigoth, Lady Jorelia had died in her sleep not two weeks since. That had left a fresh void at the head of the order, and Merroc, a White Robe who had served on the Conclave for more than twenty years, had been chosen to fill the post. A broad-bellied man with a long, snowy beard braided with beads of turquoise, he took no pride in his new position. He would lead the wizards into exile, and he would not live to see its end. As long as the Lightbringer lived, the order would remain hidden-perhaps longer, if his successors proved equally zealous.

“One day, though,” Merroc whispered, grasping the key in his hand. “One day … ”

He looked up at the building he had just locked. The Palanthian Tower was an equal mix of all three colors of magic, a tall cylinder of shimmering white tipped with red, onion-shaped domes and minarets of black basalt. It had been the greatest store of learning in all the order, which was why the sorcerers had chosen to abandon it last. It had taken considerably longer than the other Towers to empty it of its books and scrolls. In the end, the wizards had given much of that lore to the Library of Palanthas, where monks who worshiped Gilean, the Book of Knowledge, would keep it safe.

Now the Tower stood empty, its high windows dark, its halls silent. That wouldn’t last long. The Lord of Palanthas would take it over, as the Kingpriest had done in Istar. That thought saddened Merroc greatly. He had studied here as a boy, taken his Test here. At least this Tower was still standing, though. A shudder ran through him as he thought of what had happened elsewhere. As long as the Tower remained, so did, the chance that the mages might one day return.

Sighing, Merroc turned away from the gates. The oaks were in full leaf, summertime coming early this far north. The breeze that whispered among their boughs smelled of the sea. The Shoikan Grove was dark, the most fearsome of all the enchanted woods that surrounded-or once surrounded-the Towers. Its magic filled the minds of those who entered it with fear, terrifying them so that even the doughtiest Solamnic fled weeping before he came close to the other side.

At a gesture from the highmage, the oaks moved aside, forming a path. The sounds of the city grew louder, more distinct. Finally, the trail opened up onto the streets of Palanthas. A crowd had formed outside, thousands strong, the folk of the city clamoring to glimpse the mages’ surrender. When they saw Merroc, they let out a burst of raucous noise: jeering and hissing, mixed with the jubilant shouts of victory. Merroc shook his head sadly, then walked down the path toward them.

The lords of the city awaited him: Urian, the Lord of Palanthas, resplendent in his robes of office; Yarns, the High Clerist of the Solamnic Knights, looking grave beneath his winged helm; Torvald, the city’s high priest, practically ablaze with righteous satisfaction. Astinus the Undying, the master of the Great Library, who had accepted the sorcerers’ tomes, stood nearby. When this was done, he would write it all out in the Iconochronoi, the great chronicles he had been keeping for as long as anyone could remember. He nodded coolly to Merroc, his studious eyes taking in everything around him.

The highmage looked to Lord Urian, trying not to show his distaste. The man’s eyes all but glowed with eagerness as he stared at the Tower. The rumor was that he hoped to turn the place into his private treasury for his hoard of gold and jewels.

“Your Worship,” Merroc said, “the Tower is empty. My people have left it and will not return.”

Urian nodded, licking his lips greedily. The highmage shook his head, annoyance growing as he reached into a pouch and produced an amulet on a silver chain. It was a black gem, unlovely and seething with power. Whoever wore it could pass through the Shoikan Grove unharmed. Even when he held it forth, however, the Lord’s eyes remained fixed on the Tower.

“This is the Nightjewel,” Merroc said. “It will-”

“Who is that up there?” the Lord of Palanthas interrupted, pointing.

Merroc froze. Even Astinus was looking in the same direction, his brow furrowing. That, more than anything, put a cold lump in the highmage’s belly.

Slowly he turned, and saw it too.

It stood in one of the Tower’s windows, high up near the crimson dome: a lone figure, tall and gaunt, his face obscured by a deep, dark hood. His robes were ragged black, billowing in the wind. The people of Palanthas gasped at the sight, exclaiming in horror.

Merroc’s eyes went wide. The Tower had been empty when he left it. He had checked the rooms care fully, with spells and his own eyes. There had been no one left within.

But then, who was that?

The figure raised his hands, and the crowd fell silent, edging back. Merroc ran through some spells he knew, finding one that would conjure a shield to protect the mob from whatever the Black Robe meant to do. He murmured the incantation under his breath, his fingers twitching, then felt the magic course into him. He held it back, waiting.

The Black Robe raised his head and spoke, his voice carrying clearly down beyond the grove.

“You think you have won!” he shouted. “You have won nothing! The gates of this Tower will remained closed and its, halls empty until the day when the master of both the past and the present comes to claim its power!”

With that, he stepped up onto the windowsill.

“No!” Merroc cried.

The Black Robe jumped.

People screamed as he fell, robes fluttering like wings, but not bearing him up, not even slowing him as he plummeted, down, down, down.

The sound his body made when he hit the gates was unspeakable. The golden points drove through him in half a dozen places, impaling him. The latticework bent and warped beneath his weight, turning red as his blood poured out onto the ground. The Black Robe didn’t die right away, though. Somehow, he found the strength to tilt his head up, and speak one last spell with his final breath.

“Casai morvok na timoralo, lagong tsarantam uvoi…”

“No,” Merroc said again, his skin turning to ice. He knew those words, knew what would happen even as the Black Robe slumped at last, his life draining away to seal the curse he had laid upon the Tower. “Oh, sweet Solinari, no.”

The golden gates groaned, writhing like a living thing. As Merroc watched, the gold and silver changed from bloody red to the black of corruption, the jewels falling to dust. That wasn’t all, though. Above, the Tower also began to transform. Its minarets cracked and crumbled, chunks of stone raining down on the ground below. The white and red colors faded, turning ice-gray, the Tower’s beauty becoming gruesome. The path through the Shoikan Grove closed.

The crowd’s screams were all around now. Lord Yarus shouted for his men. Lord Urian was gone, running away with the rest, the high priest too. Only Astinus remained, one eyebrow raised as he stoically observed the chaos.

Feeling dead, Merroc sank to his knees, bowed his head and sobbed like a child.

The Dark One laughed, watching the Tower of Palanthas wither and die, the folk who had come to celebrate its fall fleeing in terror. Peering into his scrying vessel-the skull of a silver dragon, cut open and filled with its namesake metal-he nodded in satisfaction at what he had wrought.

It had been a long time coming, and more bother than he had expected. Another man would have regretted that so much death had been necessary to accomplish these things, but it troubled Fistandantilus not a bit. The knights of the Divine Hammer … the people of Daltigoth and Losarcum … his fellow mages … even Andras, whose death had sealed the Tower of Palanthas. What were they to him? Even if ten times as many had perished, it would not have given him pause.

At last his perseverance had its reward. The Order of High Sorcery was driven into hiding, where it could not meddle in his affairs. The church of Istar was in disarray, and he had a place close to the Kingpriest, close to the Lightbringer.

He waved his hand above the dragon shull, and the image of the blighted Tower faded.

The next move would have to wait-perhaps for years-but Fistandantilus had lived for centuries. Above all else, he was patient.

In the darkness, he smiled. The time would come.