Sacred Fire

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.

Chapter 30

Most years, winter came hard and early to Kharolis. Nestled in the south, far from the balmy breezes that kept most of Istar warm year-round, its plains and mountains caught the brunt of the cold that blew in off the Icereach Sea. Normally, the air turned chill in the first days of autumn; by early winter, Kharolis was accustomed to slumbering beneath a blanket of snow.

Not this year. The festival of Yule had come and gone four days ago, and still Kharolis baked as though it were high summer. Not a flake of snow had fallen. People slept on rooftops or under the stars, to escape the stifling