Sacred Fire

“What are you talking about?” Bron demanded.

“Beldinas,” Cathan replied, shifting to his left to protect his injured arm. “He’s going to call on the gods, and they’ll destroy Istar. And not just the city-the whole empire. The burning hammer will be the Kingpriest’s punishment.”

Again Bron advanced, and Cathan fought him off, stepping in close this time to foil the younger man’s reach, then hammering him in the face with the hilt of his sword. The visor crumpled and came loose; Bron stumbled back, clutching until he got a good grip on the metal. He yanked the broken visor off. He flipped it into the water, and took the moment to shake his head at Cathan.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “Beldinas can’t be wrong. He’s the Lightbringer.”

“No. I am.”

Bron had been preparing another onslaught. Now he stopped, his face going ashen, and backed up in shock.

“What?”

“I’m the Lightbringer.” Cathan murmured the words not as a boast, but as a simple, sorrowful fact. “The god told me so.” Bron hesitated, his sword wavering. Doubt flashed across his face. Part of him wanted to believe, and it warred with the part of him that insisted he must do his duty. Cathan watched, knowing already how it would turn out.

As in the vision, duty won.

Bron came on hard, no longer testing, his blade swiping vicious arcs. Aggressive as he was, though, each move was exact, and powerful enough that Cathan’s arm soon grew numb from parrying the blows. Soon there was no more dock behind Cathan, nowhere left to back up. He could defy the vision: all he had to do was jump into the water and try to swim away. If he did, though, the knights might get their crossbows back and finish him off. So he concentrated anew on his sword-work, stopping Bron’s hungry blade again, and again, and again…

But he wasn’t quick enough.

Knowing it was inevitable, he couldn’t block Bron’s sword from piercing his arm just below the elbow. It struck deep, numbing his wrist and sending a jolt up to his shoulder. Ebonbane fell from his fingers, teetering on the dock’s edge.

A moment later, Cathan found the knight’s blade poised just inches from his chest. One good shove, and Bron would end his life. He froze in place. Groans and cheers rose from the wharf. “Now do you yield?” Bron demanded.

Cathan shut his eyes, reaching deep into himself. He’d denied his faith in his youth, and misplaced it all these years. Now he channeled his trust in the god, focusing his thoughts. Power flowed into him, bright and cool, momentarily flushing away his despair. Paladine, he thought, thank you for your strength.

“Pridud,” he murmured.

Break.

Cathan’s eyes flashed like stormclouds, and Sir Bron’s steel blade shattered. A thousand pieces flew everywhere, biting the flesh of both Cathan and Bron, raining down onto the dock and the lake. On the waterfront, people cried out. The knights broke free of their captors and charged to their master’s aid. But Bron was frozen, staring at the hilt of his now useless weapon. Then he raised a shaking hand to lift off his helmet. Beneath, his face was pale with amazement and horror.

“Pilofiro?” he breathed.

Cathan nodded, once.

The other knights pounded up the dock, holding swords and maces at the ready. But as they neared, Bron held up a quivering hand.

“No,” he said. “This is over. We let him go.”

The knights halted, confused. Bron kept his attention on Cathan, riveted by the holy gleam in his eyes.

“I didn’t believe you,” he said.

“I don’t blame you,” said Cathan, resting a hand on his shoulder.

Armor rattling, Bron knelt before him. “Task me, my lord. I will do whatever you ask.”

Cathan glanced up. The sun was almost at its zenith. Scant minutes remained before noon. “I am no lord,” Cathan said, lowering his voice. “But I must tell you this: This city is as doomed as Istar. Within the hour, it will vanish from the face of Krynn. Leave it, Bron-get out now, while there’s still time.”

Fear burned in Bron’s eyes. He opened his mouth-to ask why Cathan was staying then-but thought of something else. “And the Disks?” he asked.

“They must remain with me, at the god’s behest,” Cathan said. He glanced down at Ebonbane, and nudged it with his foot. “Paladine says nothing about this, though. Take my sword with you-I would leave some legacy in this world.”

The young knight met his gaze-didn’t look away, but truly met the eyes of Cathan, the Twice-Born, the man who truly was the Lightbringer. Then, slowly, he bent down and lifted the sword off the planks. It glistened in the sunlight. Tears, unexpectedly, welled in Cathan’s eyes. He bowed his head in farewell. Bron did the same. Then, with an order to his men-an order he had to shout twice to get them to move-he strode back up the dock toward land.

Cathan watched the knights depart, vanishing into the crowd. Then, smiling to himself, he walked to the nearest boat, climbed down, and took up its oars.

Istar the Beautiful was dying.

In a thousand years, as long as the Lordcity had stood, it had not suffered a single earthquake-not even any significant tremor. That morning a dozen struck, each worse than the last. Everywhere, the great metropolis was imploding and collapsing into ruins. Huge cracks split its mighty walls, and its eastern gates crumbled completely, burying the panicking masses who had tried to escape that way. Chasms tore through the hilly nobles’ district, swallowing palatial manors whole. The waterfront was ablaze, the docks as well as most of the ships in port; the rest clogged the harbor-mouth, each trying to be the first out onto open water.

The streets were sheer mayhem, surging with terrified people, none of whom had any idea where to go. Shoving led to fights, fights to brawls, and brawls to riots that raged out of control. Even the Scatas couldn’t stop the madness, for the crowds turned on them when they moved in, and beat the soldiers with cudgels and paving stones and finally their own bare hands. Merchant princes lay charred and mutilated in the remains of Istar’s marketplaces. Slaves turned on their masters, strangling them with their own chains. Screams of terror and howls of agony rang out in gardens where song-birds once sang.

In the Arena, the throngs-who had cheered Pheragas of Ergoth’s victory over the Red Minotaur only half an hour earlier-turned to their own bloodletting. The old, the weak, and the slow all perished first as the young, strong, and healthy knocked them down and trampled their bodies into the ground. The gladiators ran free, hewing their way through the crowds with weapons fake and real. Rockbreaker himself soon lay among the dead, impaled upon the Freedom Spire by one of his own fighters. As the dwarfs last breath left him, the entire north wall of the Arena gave way, crushing hundreds of screaming men and women. A great, billowing cloud of dust and smoke plumed skyward, then hung in the choking air.

At the Temple, the hierarchs and elder clerics fought a losing battle to maintain order as acolytes, servants, and commoners ran wild. The faithful poured in from the Barigon, overwhelming the Divine Hammer guardians in the entry hall. They smashed the fountains and statues, making a mad stampede toward the gardens, trampling delicate flowers and killing the Kingpriest’s prized dragon-lizards. The obelisks of the Garden of Martyrs toppled, and the flames already consuming the Sacred Chancery began to spread to the nearby cloisters. Three of the remaining six golden spires had fallen, and the rest leaned precariously. The manse’s ivy- swathed walls buckled. The crystal dome shone with jaundiced light.

Within the basilica, Quarath fought his way through crashing mobs, trying to get outside. If he could just make his way to the gardens, he could send a call to the griffins. Istar might be dying, but that didn’t mean he was doomed. He shoved lesser clerics aside, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make headway. “It is the end!” cried a Mishakite priestess as she staggered heavily into him. “The dark gods will destroy us all!”

Quarath said nothing. There was no reasoning with humans when they acted so foolishly. As an elf, he was not the sort to panic, but the hysteria of the mob was beginning to affect him, as well. Dread washed over him, trying to find a chink in his armor of self-control. If he surrendered to the fear, he would be no better than the