“The Age of Mortals,” Chemosh sneered. He nudged a dead jelly fish with the toe of his boot. “This is their legacy. The awe and fear and respect for the gods is gone, and what is left in its stead? Mortal refuse and litter.”
“One could say that the gods have only themselves to blame,” Mina remarked.
“Perhaps you forget that you are speaking to one of those gods,” Chemosh returned, his dark eyes glittering.
“I am sorry, my lord,” said Mina. “Forgive me, but I sometimes do forget…” She halted, not quite certain where that sentence might lead.
“Forget that I am a god?” he asked angrily.
“My lord, forgive me—”
“Do not apologize, Mina,” said Chemosh. The sea breeze tousled his long, dark hair, blowing it back from his face. He gazed out to sea, seeing what had once been, seeing what now was. He sighed deeply. “The fault is mine. I come to you as a mortal. I love you as a mortal. I want you to think of me as mortal. This aspect of me is only one of many. The others you would not particularly like,” he added dryly.
He reached out his hand to her and she took it. He drew her close, and they stood together upon the shore, the wind mingling their hair, black and red, shadow and flame.
“You spoke the truth,” he said. “We gods are to blame. Although we did not steal away the world, we gave Takhisis the opportunity to do so. Each of us was so absorbed in our little part of creation, we locked ourselves up in our own little shops, sitting on our little stools with our little feet twined around the rungs, peering down at our work like a short-sighted tailor, plying our needles at some small piece of the universe. And when we woke one day to find that our Queen had run away with the world, what did we do? Did we grab up our flaming swords and sweep through the heavens, scattering the stars to search for her? No. We ran out of our little shops all amazed and frightened and wrung our hands and cried, ‘Alack¬a-day! The world is gone. Whatever shall we do!’ “
His voice hardened. “I have often thought that if my own army had been arrayed outside her palace gates, my own forces ready to storm her walls, Queen Takhisis might have thought twice. As it was, I was lazy. I was content to make do with what I had. All that has changed. I will not make the same mistake again.”
“I have made you sorrowful, my lord,” said Mina, hearing the regret and harsh bitterness in his voice. “I am sorry. This was meant to be a joyous day. A day of new beginnings.”
Chemosh took hold of Mina’s hand and brought it to his lips and kissed her fingers. Her heart beat fast and her breath came short. He could rouse her to desire with a touch, a look.
“You spoke the truth, Mina. No one else, not even one of the other gods, would dare say such a thing to me. Most lack the capacity to see it. You are so young, Mina. You are not yet one and twenty. Where do you find such wisdom? Not from your late Queen, I think,” Chemosh added sardonically.
Mina gave this consideration, gazing out upon a sea that was flat but not particularly calm. The water stirred restlessly, back and forth, reminding her of someone endlessly, nervously pacing.
“I saw it in the eyes of the dying,” she said. “Not those who now give their souls to you, my lord. Those who once gave their souls to me.”
The Battle of Beckard’s Cut. The Solamnic knights broke out of Sanction, broke the siege of that city by the Dark Knights of Takhisis, then known, ignominiously, as the Knights of Neraka. The knights and soldiers of Neraka turned and fled as the Solamnics poured out of the fortress. The Neraka command crumbling, Mina took charge. She ordered her troops to slay those who were fleeing, ordered them to kill their comrades, kill friends, brothers. Inspired by the light of golden glowing amber, they obeyed her. The bodies piled up high, choking the pass. Here, the Solamnic charge ground to a halt, brought to a stop by a dam made of broken bone and bloody flesh. The day was Mina’s. She’d turned a rout into victory. She walked the field of battle, held the hands of those who were dying by her command, and she prayed over them, giving their souls to Takhisis.
“Except that the souls didn’t come to Takhisis,” said Mina softly to the sea that had rocked her as a child. “The souls came to me. Like flowers, I plucked them and gathered them to my heart, holding them close, even as I spoke her name.”
She turned to Chemosh. “That is my truth, my lord. I didn’t know it for a long time. I shouted, ‘For the glory of Takhisis’ and I prayed to her every day and every night. But when the troops chanted my name, when they shouted, ‘Mina, Mina,’ I did not correct them. I smiled.”
She was silent, watching the waves wander aimlessly to the shore, watched them deposit filth at her feet.
“Once more mankind will fear the gods,” said Chemosh, “or at least one of them. Down there”—he pointed beneath the filth, the debris, the garbage—“down there lies the beginning of my rise as King of the Pantheon. I am going to tell you a story, Mina. Below the sea lies a graveyard, the largest in the world, and this is the tale of those who are buried beneath the waves…:’
My story begins in the Age of Dreams, when a powerful wizard known as Kharro the Red determined that the Orders of Magic needed safe havens where wizards could meet together, study together, work together. They needed places where they could safely store spell books and artifacts. He proposed that the wizards build Towers of High Sorcery, strongholds of magic.
Kharro sent mages throughout Ansalon to locate sites on which to build these new Towers. The White Robes, under the leadership of a wizardess named Asanta, chose as their location a poor fishing village known as Istar.
The Black Robes and the Red chose large and prosperous cities in which to build the Towers. Kharro summoned Asanta to Wayreth and demanded to know the reason for her choice. Asanta was a seer. She saw the future of Istar and predicted that one day its glory would eclipse all other cities on Ansalon. The White Robes were given permission to start work upon the Tower, and forty years later, Asanta led the incantation that raised the Tower of High Sorcery of Istar.
Asanta had been given a glimpse of Istar’s rise. She did not foresee its fall. Not even we gods could foresee that.
For many decades, the wizards of the Tower of Istar ruled benevolently over the people of that small village and were instrumental in its rapid growth. Soon Istar was no longer a village but a thriving, prosperous city. Not long after that, it became an empire.
As Istar grew, so did the power of its clerics, particularly those of Mishakal and Paladine. Eventually one of these clerics rose to prominence in the government of Istar. He proclaimed himself ruler, calling himself by the title of Kingpriest. From this point on, the influence of the wizards began to wane and that of the clerics to grow.
An uneasy alliance continued to exist between the church and the Robes, though distrust was building on both sides. A white-robed wizard named Mawort, the Master of the Tower of Istar, managed to keep peace between the two factions.
The Conclave of Wizards viewed Mawort as the Kingpriest’s pawn, and when he died, they appointed a Red Robe to take over as Master of the Tower, hoping by this to reestablish the independence of the wizards and have greater influence on Istarian politics.
The Kingpriest was furious, the citizens of Istar outraged. Distrust of the wizards deepened to hatred. Treachery and mischance caused open warfare to break out between the Kingpriest, his followers, and the wizards. Thus began the Lost Battles, so named for no one came out the winner.
The Kingpriest declared holy war on the wizards of Ansalon. The wizards retreated into their strongholds, threatening to destroy the Towers and their environs if they were attacked. The Kingpriest did not heed the warning and attacked the Tower at Daltigoth. Knowing that they must go down to defeat, the wizards fulfilled their promise and destroyed the Tower. A great many innocent lives were lost in the destruction. The wizards were saddened by this, but they believed that they had actually saved lives, for many more thousands would have died had the wizards’ powerful spell books and artifacts fallen into the hands of those who would misuse them.