Chosen of the Gods

“Ride!” Gareth roared. “Ride, all of you!”

Ilista was already moving, digging her heels into her horse’s flanks. It hurled itself down the pass, terrified by the storm and the smell of blood, leaping recklessly over stones and bracken alike. She heard the rumble of hoofs behind her as the Knights charged after. She pulled on her reins to let them catch up, but the panicking mare wouldn’t slow. All she could do was hold on and pray as the horse flew down the trail.

She heard a wyvern shriek above her and looked up to see one of them bank and begin its dive, streaking straight toward her. It was the same gray beast she’d first spotted, its eyes blazing and jaws agape. Its talons and stinger glistened red. Gareth was bellowing in Solamnic somewhere behind her, but the wyvern paid no notice, arrowing toward her-the one unarmored morsel in the lot. She threw herself forward, flattening herself against the mare’s neck and laughing madly. She’d been afraid of goblins!

Her breath blasted from her lungs when the beast struck, and for an instant there was no sound but a howling roar, no sight but red mist, no taste but blood in her mouth, no feeling at all. Then she came back to herself, and the pain came with it, her shoulder bathed in liquid fire where the wyvern’s claws grazed her, plunging through skin, sinew, and bone alike. The other talon missed her flesh altogether, snagging her robes instead and clutching her. She felt herself lifted in the air. She stared at the ground as it fell away beneath her, her stomach lurching. There was Gareth, gazing up at her in horror, there were his Knights, mouths agape. She tried to call out to them, but it hurt too much to draw breath.

The wyvern wheeled, and her companions disappeared from view. She rose higher and higher, the wyvern soaring toward the raging stormclouds, and Ilista closed her eyes, waiting for the stinger to strike, the burning poison in her veins. Please, she prayed silently, let death be quick.

The stinger didn’t strike. Instead, there was a deafening boom, and the wyvern lurched sideways, jarring her and sending fresh spikes of pain through her body.

The stink of roasting flesh flooded her nostrils, and she opened her tearing eyes. The wyvern’s right wing was on fire, the membrane curling like burning paper. It screeched in agony, its tail whipping about, as it began to whirl and flutter.

Merciful Paladine, she thought as the ground started rushing toward her. Lightning struck it!

That was when she saw him, standing on a ledge beneath her: a lone figure in a gray cassock, his hood pulled low against the wind. He was too far away, the storm too fierce, the pain too great, to make out any more details. She watched as he raised his arms, head thrown back, shouting at the storm. Thunder roared again, making her skull buzz, and a blinding lightning bolt flashed down, ripping through the wyvern’s other wing. Shrieking even louder, it dropped like a meteor and let her go.

All at once, Ilista was tumbling free, spinning as she fell, now looking at the storm-wracked sky, now the wyvern, all aflame, now the ground rising toward her with sickening speed.

Suddenly, it stopped-or rather she stopped, her shivering body slowing, then halting in midair as the blazing wyvern slammed into the ground below. She gasped, astounded, as she hovered there, then looked down and saw the man in gray again, the one who had summoned the lightning to kill the beast. He was looking at her now, hands outstretched, and she knew he was the one holding her aloft. He moved his arms, and she moved toward him, floating through the air like a leaf on a stream… then he lowered her, slowly, onto the rocky ledge beside him.

Firm stone pressed up against her, and she lay wheezing, trembling with pain as she stared up at him. She tried to make out his face, but shadow hid his features.

“Welcome, Efisa,” he said.

The world went black.

Chapter Eight

Istar was a land of grand cities. Besides the Lordcity, there was Karthay in the north, with its tiered gardens and many-colored rooftops; Tucuri at the mouth of the River Gather, all towering minarets and latticed windows; Kautilya, the Bronze City, its sprawling baths shrouded in mist; Lattakay in the east, known for its sprawling wharf and Street of White Arches; and a dozen more that put such exemplary western cities as Palanthas and Xak Tsaroth to shame.

The borderlands had only one true city of note: Govinna. It was small and dense, standing on twin hills, the two halves surrounded by walls of granite Arched bridges crossed the gorge between, while the River Edessa frothed far below. Within, it was a maze, its stone-and-plaster buildings leaning over the narrow laneways so far that in some places they nearly touched. Here and there, open squares broke up the closeness, wide expanses with fountains or statues in their midst Markets sprawled along the gorge’s edge, where great winch-lifts and long stairs led to the unquiet waters below. It was a gray town, with few trees and many rooftops shingled with stone, but it was not plain. It could not have been, with its temples.

Govinna had a surfeit of churches, more than a score in all, looming well above the rest of the city. The borderfolk had built them in a fashion that resembled the worship-halls of Solamnia, more than those of Istar-sharp peaks in place of domes, dragon-shaped gargoyles instead of delicate spires, green-aged copper where gold or silver might have gleamed. Strong-walled and solid, they might have appeared fortresses, had it not been for their stained-glass windows and the god’s triangle mounted above their doors. In the midst of Govinna’s western half, at the crest of the hill, was the Pantheon, the grandest temple of all. It was one of the few churches in Istar that would not have looked tiny beside the Great Temple, though it looked utterly unlike that church, all sharp corners and dark hallways instead of arches and open spaces. Within, in tapestry-hung apartments atop its highest tower, dwelt Revered Son Durinen, the Little Emperor.

The name had nothing to do with Durinen’s stature, for he was in fact a huge man, nearly seven feet tall and built like an ogre. Rather, it was an inherited title, one his predecessor had borne, and others before him, going back some eighty years, to the time of the Trosedil. In the year 842 the reigning Kingpriest, Vasari the Lion, had died suddenly in his sleep, heirless. In the confusion that followed, two rival hierarchs had vied for the throne. One, Evestel, took the name Vasari II and claimed the throne in the Lordcity. The other, Pradian, fled with his followers to the borderlands, and set up his rival church in Govinna.

Amid the confusion the Miceram-the ruby-encrusted crown of the Kingpriests- vanished. Scholars argued over the means of its disappearance. Some said Pradian stole it, while others claimed the old Kingpriest’s ghost took it north and flung it into the sea. Still others believed Paladine himself had claimed it, appearing in his form of the platinum dragon and flying away with it clutched in his talons. According to this telling, the god was keeping it in his realm beyond the stars and would return it to Krynn when the need for it was greatest. In its place, Pradian had adopted an emerald diadem instead and Vasari a circlet of topaz. Thus began the War of Two Thrones, which later gained a third when Ardosean IV emerged in the desert city of Losarcum, wearing a tiara of sapphires.

In Govinna, Pradian won the favor of the powerful, cleric and noble alike, and ordered the Pantheon built. Scholars agreed he was the mightiest of the three warring Kingpriests, a lord of fire and fury, yet pious as well. Even a century later men claimed, sorrowfully, that had fate moved differently he would have won the war. Instead, however, he died untimely, shot by an archer during the Battle of Golden Grasses. Though a successor, Theorollyn HI, rose in his place, the Govinnese faction never recovered from the loss, and so, when the Trosedil ended, it was Ardosean who marched into Istar and beheaded Vasari on the Great Temple’s steps. Theorollyn, denounced and discredited, was imprisoned the High Clerist’s Tower, far away in Solamnia’s northern mountains. From then on, the Kingpriests had worn the sapphire tiara, and those who wore the emerald diadem bent their knees to the east and called themselves Little Emperors, in memory of what might have been.

Tonight was the Night of White Roses, the midsummer rite that commemorated the death, a thousand years before, of Huma Dragonbane, the greatest Solamnic Knight who ever lived. Huma had martyred himself while using the fabled dragon-lances to drive Takhisis and her dragon hordes from the world, and ever since, temples all over Ansalon had thrown their doors wide so the faithful could pay him homage. Even now, the Pantheon’s gates stood open, and chanting processions bearing icons of Huma and his lance wended through the city’s narrow laneways, toward the great church.