day, and where he went no one could say.
EPILOGUE
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
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
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
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
