Soth’s shoulders were stooped from exhaustion. When he wasn’t drinking, he was manning the walls. Not that the Solamnics could reach the keep’s outer curtain; the gorge stood in their way, and any who attempted to lay the foundations for a bridge were driven off with arrows. However, each night the attackers catapulted flaming pitch into Dargaard. It took hours to put out the fires, but the flames always took another house or storage building or wagon before dying out.
Lord Soth knew that exhaustion and hunger and boredom were the besieging Solamnics’ most valued allies; the knights under Sir Ratelif had been camped outside Dargaard’s walls for weeks, but they had accomplished little if one tallied only the physical damage. In fact, with winter now hard upon the land, it seemed as if the keep would be able to wait out the siege. The lawful knights had established a blockade, however, and with each passing hour, Dargaard’s supplies dwindled.
Disheartened, Soth reached for a cloth to cover the mirror. When his hand got close to the glass, he saw something that fanned his anger.
Blotches of ink covered his fingers like the marks of some horrid plague. Soth, loving adventure as much as he did, had never been one for keeping accounts and ledgers. That was what he paid Caradoc and others to do. In the last few weeks, however, he’d become obsessed with maintaining a careful record of their limited rations of food and drink. Now Soth rubbed his ink-stained fingers together, but the black marks wouldn’t come off.
“They’ve forced me to become a clerk,” he snarled, dropping the heavy cloth over the mirror.
He looked at his hands again. His fingers had spent more time wrapped around a mug of wine or a quill pen than a sword’s hilt in the last month. Even though the Measure proscribed daily weapons exercise for all Knights of Solamnia, Soth had done very little in that regard since his trial in Palanthas. Nor was that the only ritual he’d abandoned. Upon joining the Order of the Sword, all knights fasted one day out of seven; Soth could not remember when he’d skipped a meal last, not by choice. He’d also failed to follow the Order’s rules regarding drink and gambling and the chivalrous treatment of women.
These were all minor transgressions when compared to Soth’s failure to worship his deities, those powers that watched over all Knights of Solamnia. Habbakuk, Kiri-Jolith, and especially Paladine protected the Order. It was the ideals these gods personified that drove each knight on to greater and greater deeds. Yet Soth had not visited the keep’s chapel since the siege had begun. In fact, he had stopped praying to Paladine, patron of the Knights of the Rose, on the day he first made secret love to Isolde. Even the sacred vows he’d exchanged with the elfmaid on their wedding day had been said for the sake of convenience alone; if Paladine had heard them, it was not because Soth desired it.
The disgraced knight’s first thought was to blame Isolde for his sorry state. Perhaps she had bewitched him somehow, turning him against the Code and the Measure. But he knew that wasn’t true. She had pleaded with him almost daily from the start of the siege, begged him to raise his voice to the gods and ask for a quest. Only then might he make atonement for the sins he’d committed.
“Isolde!” he shouted, hurrying from the room. The sound of his voice echoed through the halls, but no one came running. Soth had stormed through the keep many times in the last few weeks, drunk and shouting for his wife; those in the castle knew better than to get in his way.
He found his wife straightening things in the nursery. Isolde started at his appearance, and Soth felt part of his soul wither at her fear. She was afraid of him.
“Please, Isolde,” he said, falling to his knees. “Come to the chapel with me and pray. I want to be free of this burden.”
She came to him then and held him close. When he looked at her face, he saw tears streaming down her cheeks, drops of purest silver against the dark bruise on her cheek. “Help me win my honor,” he whispered, “and we will have our life, our old happiness, back again.”
Hours passed, and Soth found himself in the keep’s chapel, the smell of polished wood and the sharp smoke of burning tapers filling his mind. He focused on those smells and methodically closed his consciousness to everything else-the dots of light that swam in the blackness before his sealed eyes; the sound of Isolde’s breathing as she knelt beside him; the rustle of the sacred tapestries; the bitter taste in his mouth. The discomfort in his back and knees from kneeling for so long and the dull ache of hunger in his stomach were more difficult to banish, but they, too, fell away from his thoughts.
Am I afraid to face my patron after so long, the blot of so many sins upon my soul? That was true, he realized, and with that realization he welcomed Paladine into his heart.
A meteor as large as a mountain streaked out of the blue sky. Soth felt its fire burning him, its heat turning his skin to char and ash. He tried to breathe, but smoke scorched his lungs, sending fingers of pain through his chest and throat. As the meteor got closer and the heat grew more intense, his vision blurred. Bubbling like boiling water, his eyes burst and ran down his blistered cheeks.
Then the meteor struck.
Only you can prevent this, something said inside Soth’s mind. The voice was full of love and understanding, and it calmed his frantic thoughts. Such a voice could belong to only one being.
“Is this the hell that awaits me, Paladine?” Soth managed to whisper through lips that an instant ago had felt cracked and scorched. He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by pure white light.
You were once a force for justice in Solamnia, Soth of Dargaard, so I will give you a quest, said the Father of Good. Yet know that your sins have been as great as the things you once accomplished for my cause. Therefore, the quest I will set for you will be greatly difficult. Only if you can turn yourself to the Good wholly and irrevocably can you hope to win it.
Another vision filled Soth’s mind then-a crystal-clear image of the Kingpriest of Istar, giving a speech in celebration of a holy day. Framed by an arch of purest alabaster, the kingpriest faced a milling throng. With exaggerated movements, intended for those at the back of the mob, he looked to the heavens and held his hands up. At first it appeared to Soth that the kingpriest was preaching a sermon. The vision focused on the kingpriest’s face, and Soth saw that he was raving like a lunatic. His hands weren’t held to the heavens in supplication; they were thrust toward the gods like accusing fingers.
Like you, Soth, the kingpriest has done much to combat Evil in Ansalon, Paladine said, his voice filled with infinite sadness. Now he has appointed himself mediator between man and the gods. In his pride, he and his thousands of followers will soon demand that we guardians of Good give over to him the power to eradicate all Evil.
“I am to stop him from making this demand?” Soth asked.
Paladine sighed.
Yes. Go to Istar, Soth, and make the kingpriest stop. He does not understand the Balance. By attempting to bend such great forces to his will, he will destroy everything for which he has worked.
That the greatest god on Krynn would tell him of such an important quest stunned Soth, but he managed to say, “I will do all that you require of me, great Father of Good.”
You will be redeemed, Soth of Dargaard, but it will cost you your life.
The vision of the kingpriest faded, but Paladine offered a warning. Know that more depends upon your success than your honor, Soth. If the kingpriest cannot be swayed from his prideful course, all the gods-those who strive for Good and Evil and the balance of the two-will punish the world. The mountain will strike Istar, just as you saw it.
Soth felt the pain of the thousands who would perish if that came to pass. The whole of Krynn would be changed-continents would shift, seas would boil red with blood, and countless lives would be snuffed out. The suffering of those left alive would be more horrible. The kingpriest alone-
If you fail, know that your fate will be more terrible than even that of the kingpriest, the Father of Good promised.
Soth found himself in the chapel once more. Isolde stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.
“I have my quest,” Soth said. His face was flushed with righteous fervor. “I must leave for Istar right away. Paladine himself has given me the power to save all of Krynn.”
“Paladine himself gave me the power,” Soth said. “Paladine himself.”
Azrael sat up and brushed the dirt and pine needles from his back. “What’s that, mighty lord?” he asked softly. “Paladine gave you what power?”
For the first time in hours, the death knight stirred. “What do you presume to know of the god Paladine?” he
