Chapter 29

Quarath awoke covered with sweat, his bedsheets soaked through and sticking to him. It was not yet dawn, but already it was hotter than yesterday—oppressive, muggy heat. His bedchamber felt like summer in the jungles of Falthana; the elven plants he kept, used to cooler climes, were wilting. He felt grimy. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, and muttered a curse.

He would have to send word to the Arena, postponing the Games; Rockbreaker’s gladiators wouldn’t be able to put on a proper show tomorrow, in this torrid air. He’d been looking forward to watching the Barbarian fight again, too; the big brute had proven quite popular, second only to the great Pheragas. He’d been a good investment. As soon as the heat broke, he vowed, the Games would go on.

He glanced at the windows. He kept them shuttered these days, so the room could stay in shadow, but even so, light leaked through. Something about the light today wasn’t right; the foredawn glow seemed wan, weak, somehow unclean. And now that he paid attention, the sounds he heard were all wrong, too. The choirs should be practicing the Morningsong, but the delicate harmonies that greeted him when he awoke every morning were not there. In their place his were shouts and strangled cries, unpleasantly discordant to refined ear.

“What now?” he muttered, rising from his bed. He folded a robe about his body, went to the windows, cracked open the shutters—and stiffened, sucking in a horrified gasp.

Less than a minute later, he was standing outside with what seemed like the entire population of the Temple—priest and acolyte, knight and monk. Like them all—and the thousands who massed in the Lordcity’s streets beyond the great church—Quarath stared upward, and what he saw made him shiver.

The sky normally, at this time of day was a deep, brilliant blue, the color of sapphires. Now, however, it was a distinct green… a putrescent green, like the color of decaying flesh. Not a cloud marked the sky, from horizon to horizon. No breath of wind stirred the trees and banners. Everywhere there was the reek of ordure, raised by the heat from the city sewers.

Murmurs ran among the clerics. “The end is come,” whispered some. “The dark gods have awoken,” said others. Still others simply spoke one word, echoed across the Lordcity:

“Doom.”

The word resonated in Quarath’s heart, arousing animal fears. He tore his gaze from the firmament to look around for the other hierarchs. Before long he spotted Lady Elsa, who was out front of the Revered Daughters’ cloister, gaping upward with terror-filled eyes. He went over to her, grabbing her arm.

“Snap out of it, Efisa,” he barked. “We are the high clergy of Istar. This sort of thing is what common folk do, not the Kingpriest’s trusted ones!”

Elsa blinked, her eyes meeting his blankly. He shook her, but she still didn’t seem to recognize him. Giving up in disgust, he shoved the First Daughter away and swept onward toward the imperial manse. There, on a balcony overlooking the gardens, stood Beldinas’s glowing figure. Pushing his way through the crowds—they grew thicker every moment, as more and more clerics came out to watch the dreadful sky—Quarath dashed up the front stairs, past the knights on guard, and before long he found himself out on the balcony beside the Lightbringer.

“Do you see, Emissary?” asked the Kingpriest, gesturing skyward. “Do you see what the enemy does, when its defeat is imminent? Behold—even the dawn is poisoned.”

He waved his arm toward the east. There, above the Temple’s silver rooftops, the sun had risen. Rather than a bright orange disc, however, it was a smudge of olive-green. Quarath felt sick to his stomach.

“I’ve never seen its like, Holiness,” he declared. “I can call for an astronomer, if you like. They may have some answers.”

“I have the answers,” Beldinas said feverishly. “Evil sees its doom, and fights back however it can—I do not need star-watchers to tell me what is obvious. And it does not do such things in parts. There is worse to come.”

“Worse?” Quarath echoed, staring at the dim sun in the green sky.

Beldinas nodded. “I saw it in my dreams last night. A terrible wind, cutting through stone like parchment. It will strike the Temple soon.”

Quarath’s eyebrows shot up. “The Temple?” he echoed. The Kingpriest nodded. “But then, shouldn’t we hasten to evacuate?”

“Not the whole thing,” Beldinas said, thinking. The Durro Jolithas only. See that it is cleared at once, Emissary. No one may set foot in there again until I say it is safe.”

The Temple of Istar boasted seven golden spires. The tallest, the Durro Paladas—the Tower of Paladine—rose from the top of the basilica, where the bells were sounding the call to morning prayer, even now. The other six ringed it round, and rose from the corners of its walls. At the tip of each spire was the symbol of a god of light: the twin teardrops of Mishakal, the harp of Branchala, the rose of Majere, the wings of Habbakuk, the disc of Solinari, and the horns of Kiri-Jolith. Quarath’s eyes fixed on this last, and a shudder ran through him. Ordinarily, he didn’t believe in premonitions, having never communed with the gods himself. But if Beldinas said the Durro Jolithas was in danger, then…

“Hurry, Emissary,” the Kingpriest murmured. “It will not be long now.”

Then Quarath felt a change in the humid air, a rising heaviness and tension. Below, fingers were rising, pointing up at the venomous firmament. Following the crowd’s eyes, Quarath felt his heart lurch in his chest.

A black cloud had appeared directly overhead, turning slowly, like some kind of living monster. No lightning played within it, and no rain dropped from it—but the wind had shifted now, and began to pluck furiously at Quarath’s robes. The almond and citrus trees of the gardens began to tremble, then sway.

Quarath left Beldinas at once, splinting down the steps of the manse and out into the courtyard again. He called several elder priests and knights to him. They hurried over, looking to him for answers even as the wind unsettled their hair and robes. Quarath felt their fear, like his own, rising up into his throat.

“The Durro Jolithas,” he declared, pointing. “It is in danger; the Lightbringer says so. It must be cleared at once.”

Without hesitating, the men of the Divine Hammer plunged into Jolith’s tower headlong, while the priests herded the crowds away. Quarath watched as monks and servants emerged from the Durro; running across the gardens. Above, the black cloud filled the sky, dark as smoke and as large as the Temple itself. A low, howling drone filled the air, pierced by the shriller sounds of screams from all over the Lord city. Slowly, like a serpent rising from a Seldjuki charmer’s basket, a tendril began to extend downward from the cloud. Down… down…

The clerics from Falthana, Taol, and the deserts of Dravinaar had never seen a tornado before, so they stood rooted, fascinated with horror. The ones from the provinces where the plains ruled—Ismin, Gather, Midrath, and the heartlands—recognized the whirlwind, and scattered with their hands raised to protect their heads.

Quarath wasn’t from the plains, but he threw himself flat, hitting the ground hard. The world swam before his eyes for a moment; and when he looked up again, he saw the knights he’d sent into the Durro emerge from the temple, armor clattering and faces gray with terror. Then hell descended.

The whirlwind struck the northern edge of the gardens, barely fifty paces from where Quarath lay. Trees and bushes uprooted themselves, sucked up into its hungry maw. Statuary and fountains cracked, and stained-glass windows exploded into clouds of sparkling dust. And then there was something strange… it looked like someone had flung a handful of torn white rags into the air.

With a rush, Quarath understood. There were vestries just next to the Durro, where the Temple kept a large supply of clean robes. Then the howl of the wind drove all further thoughts from his mind. The noise of the tornado rose higher and higher, until Quarath thought his ears might soon begin to bleed.

The tornado cut a swath across the gardens, destroying everything in its path. Broken branches and masonry peppered the ground. The black cloud slithered toward the Durro, where first cracks appeared in the walls, and then the horned spire atop the temple began to twist and warp. With a tremendous roar, the entire building blew apart, ripped asunder by the battering wind. As soon as it was gone, the tornado lifted off the ground and howled away to the south, above the city. When it reached the harbor, it suddenly, inexplicably, collapsed, tearing itself to shreds and leaving not a trace of itself in the still green sky.

It rained marble over Lake Istar that day.

The strange windstorm terrified the folk of Istar. Some fled to their homes, huddling in cellars. Many more, however, made for the Barigon. They crowded around the Temple’s front steps, and also at the breach in its walls, where the Durro Jolithas had been destroyed. There was nothing there now but a hole, surrounded by shards of marble and shredded wood. The Divine Hammer had to move in, making a fence of their shields to hold the frightened citizens back, and keep the crowd from pouring in through the gap. All the while, the swelling mob—hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, all shiny and sweat-stained in the sweltering heat—kept chanting, over and over, calling for the Kingpriest.

“Cilenfo… Pilofiro… Babo Sod…”

At midday, the Temple’s golden doors swung open, and a hush fell over the throng as the hierarchs of the church emerged. The knights standing guard gripped their halberds warily. The Barigon was filled with tinder today, and one spark might provoke a riot. When Beldinas finally appeared, the sparks fell like rain.

The crowd went berserk as the glowing figure appeared. He walked to the very edge of the steps, and looked out over his subjects, his worshipers. They now filled the square, seething and rolling like a storm-tossed sea.

“The gods are angry!” cried some.

“The end it near!” shouted others.

“Death to the unbelievers!” roared still more, turning on the doomsayers.

Fights began to break out, all over the Barigon. Men and women argued and shoved and spat at one another. But the melee stopped the moment Beldinas raised his hands. His light blazed like a silver beacon, and with it came a wave of peace, rolling across the square, calming the hearts of everyone. In time the light crossed the whole city, and the silence descended over all Istar. The fighting, the cursing, the yelling stopped, and the eyes of the people turned as one to the Lightbringer.

“You are right,” Beldinas declared, his musical voice filling the Barigon. “The gods are angry. But it is the gods of evil who strike at us, and they do it out of fear. They do it because the end is near—their end. They think that, by terrorizing our hearts, they can keep their place in the world. So they sent the storm, and smashed this Temple with it.

“Ask yourself, though—what harm did they truly do? How many were killed in this calamity? None! How many were hurt? None! The storm destroyed stone… some glass… a few trees. But the Durro was empty when it was hit, because I saw the doom coming.

“We are still strong, and evil grows weak. It will grow weaker by the day, and soon I will cast it from the world utterly! Paladine will hearken to my voice, and he will heed my words. The darkness will fail, and we shall live in light everlasting! What can our enemies do to stop us?”

“Nothing!” cried the crowd.

“What harm can befall us, if we have faith?”

“Nothing!” Fists rose into the air, a forest of defiance.

“What will keep us from victory?”

“Nothing!” The walls of Istar sang with the people’s voices.

Beldinas let his hands drop, the Miceram shining like a star on his brow. “Yes, my children,” he said. “We are the righteous, the gods’ hammer. We cannot be stopped. And no power the darkness can command will keep us from changing the world forever.”

In the coming days, clockwork falcons came winging in from all corners of the empire, and the realms beyond. They carried messages of calamities of all kinds.

A dark fog spread over the realms of Balifor and Hylo, where the kender lived. The little folk, normally fearless and merry, were found cowering under their beds.

The skies grew dark as the black moon Nuitari, hitherto unknown to any but star-watchers and servants of evil, devoured Solinari’s silver eye and the red candle of Lunitari. The eclipse lasted a full night, and dark magic danced in the air.

The black flame—a shapeless monster that killed with a touch, and had been long thought moribund—burned anew in the halls of Thorbardin and spread death among the dwarves.

In Solamnia, noble and peasant alike went cold and hungry when all hearth-fires failed, and would not light again.

Abanasinia’s grasslands, left yellow and fragile by drought, caught fire, driving the barbarians from the plains and threatening the cities of Kharolis.

At the castle of Dargaard Keep, a renegade knight named Loren Soth turned against his fellows, and brought that ancient brotherhood to the brink of civil war.

White mist, so thick that it was impossible to see one’s own outstretched hands, settled on the harbor of Palanthas, paralyzing the ships and stopping the scribes at its great library from doing their everlasting work.

In Silvanesti, the elves wept, for great gashes opened in the bark of the trees, and what ran from those wounds was not sap but blood.

The elves of Qualinesti despaired as well, for the animals that shared their woodland realm turned wild and dangerous, hunting them in their own homes.

In Pesaro, Tucuri, and the other ports of Istar’s north, the fishermen’s nets came up empty, and the tides turned high and red, washing through the streets.

And in the Khalkists, the earth itself seemed to revolt as volcanoes erupted all up and down the range. Black smoke and ash belched into the air, and burning cinders rained down as far away as Taol.

Each catastrophe brought new murmurs to the Lordcity, where the sickly green sky gave way to constant violent thunderstorms, through Yule and on toward the new year. Yet the belief of Beldinas’s faithful remained strong. Those who spoke of doom found themselves cursed at, shouted down, even chased and pelted with stones. This was evil’s last gasp, and the people of Istar refused to let themselves—or their neighbors—show fear. Thus did the Thirteen Warnings, sent not by the gods of darkness, but by the gods of light, go unheeded.

Quarath, though he recognized the signs, did nothing to warn Beldinas of the prophecy that had been left to him by Lord Revando. Even the elf’s faith remained strong. Good would triumph over evil, and nothing would stop it.

High above, still unseen by the star-watchers, a new red star burned across the heavens.