spat. The Phaerimm whirled faster, pounding the mage in desperate fury, as rocks on the shore slam a ship run aground. But Karsus was infused with super heavy magic and star-metal and genius, and gradually he beat them back, until they whirled harmlessly, buzzing in angry frustration like bees. The room smelled of ozone and brimstone, molten metal, charred wood, and rain.
Flaring like a new star of white-hot energy, Karsus hoisted himself into the air and drew the city back level and flat. With a shrug, Karsus brushed the spinning Phaerimm back dozens of feet. With another shrug, he cast the outside walls away, so they toppled out of sight to let the day in, as if Karsus had outgrown their confines, like a moth shedding a cocoon to become a butterfly. The walls tipped and shattered into stones and beams and plaster.
The heroes huddled close around the chanting Candlemas, shut their eyes in anticipation of being crushed in rubble, but found the corridor and the rest of the building intact, the flagstones solid under their feet. A neat trick, almost a miracle, the first by a man almost a god.
Floating past the ruined walls and shorn roof, Karsus boomed his challenge, 'Mystryl! I'll have your power!'
High above, covering the sky from horizon to horizon, the goddess manifested as thunderclouds was in full retreat. She drew back, still remote, calm-faced, with dark, staring eyes wide as mountain lakes. As her retreat continued, Sunbright and Knucklebones and Aquesita wondered where she'd go, where she'd hide from the power- stealing Karsus.
Only Candlemas couldn't see, for he doggedly read his scroll. He was almost to the bottom, and the four humans sensed the magic take effect. Sunbright felt lightheaded and ethereal, as if he dreamed awake, the same as when he'd been drawn into the future by that long spell of not-time. Knucklebones hugged Sunbright's arm as her bones and heart went hollow. And Aquesita, one hand trapped by Candlemas, was torn between a distant other world she'd never known, and her familiar homeland that was falling apart before her eyes.
'Look!' cried Knucklebones. 'Lady Mystryl is-'
'Gone!'
Sweeping her arms wide, closing her volcanic eyes, Mystryl, Lady of Mystery, Controller of the Weave, ceased to be.
In a flash, the sky was clear.
Where clouds had been stacked thick and dark and roiling, there was suddenly nothing, only blue sky so vast and deep the heroes thought they saw stars. A brilliant sun, sharp and hot as if rainwashed, glared overhead. It was high noon on a spring day. The heroes' shadows lay almost directly under their feet.
But their feet were lifting from the ground, for the city was dropping.
Sunbright scooped Knucklebones, Aquesita, and the still-chanting Candlemas into his brawny arms and kicked out a foot to wedge himself between corridor walls. Already debris was sliding out the doorway into the ruins of the workshop.
Half clinging, half pushing, Aquesita pointed mutely at a craggy lump in the distance. The sister city Ioulaum dropped like the rock it was.
Tiny objects like shed feathers could be seen trailing upward, left behind: pennants, tents, banners, awnings, anything that might float on a breeze. The enclave built on an inverted mountain tipped, spun, capsized, then struck the side of a mountain. A corner burst off, a hundred buildings tumbling free like ants spilled from a hill. The face of the city struck, an entire culture destroyed. The enclave skipped sideways like a flung rock and exploded into fist- sized chunks of white and yellow and red. In three seconds, buildings, universities, streets, homes and tens of thousands of people were wiped out.
As would happen now to the enclave Karsus.
In a second, the heroes understood what happened, for the goddess's act had been clear, had communicated itself to them so that all people-all survivors-might comprehend. And remember.
Rather than allow herself to be usurped, rather than have her powers stolen, rather than let Karsus become a god, the Mother of All Magic sacrificed herself. With the last powers of this greatest of gods, she wished herself out of existence, and vanished.
And took all the magic in the world with her.
The Phaerimm, who were magic to their core, disappeared.
Karsus was left alone in the room, hovering, struggling to keep the magic within himself. But the might of the fallen star was gone, vanished, as if it had never existed. The mage clenched his fists and cried in rage and frustration and sorrow. For the first time in his life, Karsus was denied something he wanted, and he would destroy his world to get it.
Having seen none of this, Candlemas had hurried, barked the last of his spell just in time. His enchantment had taken root in the past, and already the four people faded. Exhausted physically and mentally, the pudgy mage dropped the empty paper and tightened his sweaty grip on his lady's hand.
But Aquesita tore away, screaming, 'No! I won't desert the empire in its hour of need!'
A ghostly Candlemas gave a hollow croak and grabbed for her. Only Sunbright's sturdy hand-transparent as glass-kept him from breaking the spell's enchantment.
Stumbling into the ravaged workshop, a now solid, worldly Aquesita tripped over sliding wreckage and reached high to catch the hem of her cousin's tattered white robe.
'Karry, hang on! You must save-'
That was all Candlemas, Sunbright, and Knucklebones heard, for they disappeared. Their ghostly eyes misted over, like a curtain of fog shrouding them, until Aquesita and the flaring, howling Karsus were something from a dream.
Only Aquesita, Karsus's cousin and sole living relative, the one person in the empire who loved him for himself, saw his final moments.
Struggling to retain his magical might, Karsus employed every holding spell he knew. But the mixed and fading and fluky magic betrayed him, even as he'd betrayed himself in trying to steal the powers of the goddess who controlled all magic at its roots. His cousin watched in horror as Karsus, savior of the Netherese Empire, was transformed into stone, larger than life, denser than granite, redder than blood.
By then, the enclave had tipped almost vertically. Karsus, once a god, now a red stone statue, tipped far into space and plummeted, and his loving, ill-fated cousin fell after.
For an instant, Karsus understood what had happened, how Mystryl had sacrificed herself for the common good of god and man, an unselfish sacrifice he never could have conceived of. And how his loving cousin had sacrificed herself believing in him, as the empire had believed in him.
And how he'd betrayed them all.
With this last, godlike insight, Karsus's selfish heart broke.
Even as, seconds later and far below, the statue-man drove into the ground and came to rest, while the greatest city of the empire, named after its greatest mage, exploded into fragments.
In the space of half a minute, the Netherese Empire, beloved of the gods, was snuffed out like a candle flame.
That was bad.
That was good. Their empire is finished.
As are we, almost.
Never. The Phaerimm are eternal.
And greatly reduced in numbers.
No matter. We survive.
With the humans reduced to flint axes and fire, we shall even prosper.
Increase in number.
And destroy humankind once and for all.
Let us so pledge.
Aye, so pledge we all.
On a surprisingly peaceful mountainside, miles away from the falling Empire of Netheril, sat a star-eyed girl named Mystra.
