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 others-weeping, threatening, begging for the horror to stop.
He nearly had to beat the Mishakite to get her to stop from clinging to his robes. When he finally yanked himself away, she collapsed to her knees and began to sob. Quarath ignored her pleas to him, striding away through the mob.
There was another great, booming noise, like thunder but coming from far below ground. Quarath was hurled against a wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Above, the last surviving windows exploded, showering the hallway with razors of stained glass. A dreadful wailing chorus answered the quake-thousands of panicked people trying to flee. Quarath suddenly felt a hot pain above his left eye, then a red, stinging flood blinded him. Wincing, he pressed his snowy sleeve to the wound. The cloth grew warm and damp with alarming speed.
He pushed on, in spite of the pain, He could sense the griffins now, circling high above. Most had already fled, riderless; but a few now spiraled downward, answering the call of his brother-elves. Not all of the Silvanesti would escape the catastrophe-but some would, and by Eli, he would be among them. He could see the gardens, just ahead. He sent his mind questing, seeking one of the griffins-and found the loyal creature, already swooping down to save him. He nearly laughed aloud: the Kingpriest had destroyed everything, killed everyone, doomed his city, his empire, himself-but at least he would be safe.
He was nearly to the doors when the ground shook once more. Finally, it was more than the beleaguered Temple could bear. With a horrible, grinding groan, the great church began to fold in upon itself. A great roar, like an awakening dragon, sounded above Quarath’s head. He turned to look, and saw a pillar of silver-veined marble plummeting toward him. He flung up his arm with a scream.
Then… nothing.
Chapter 33
Denubis stood paralyzed, staring at the red mess that had been Quarath of Silvanesti. He had been barely ten feet away when the pillar crashed down on the elf. The Emissary’s blood had spattered all over Denubis’s cassock. The old scribe swayed on his feet, feeling suddenly lightheaded.
Denubis!
Starting at the icy lash of the voice, Denubis looked about in alarm. All around him was destruction. The walls were shattered, columns lay scattered like matchsticks, bodies and pieces of bodies lay in crimson clumps. Clouds of billowing dust fouled the air, glowing hellish orange where fires burned. Above, the vaulted ceiling groaned and shuddered. The Great Temple had stood for nearly three hundred years, but it would not last much longer. If Denubis stayed where he was, he would end up like Quarath, crushed and buried under the rubble.
Quickly. We are nearly out of time.
Denubis shook off his stupor. The power of the Dark One’s voice was undeniable. Choking on dust, he waded on through the bloodstained debris.
*****
Of all the places in Istar that terrible day, none was safer than Fistandantilus’s laboratory. Magic crackled from one end to the other as protective spells of extraordinary power, laid down many years ago, flared into existence. They performed their job, as the Dark One knew they would; while the quakes pounded both the Lordcity and the Temple to rubble, down here-deep below the basilica-they hadn’t even knocked over a single candle. This was good, because the spell the archmage had to cast required all his concentration. And he must cast it soon-his magical wards could resist the tremors, but something much worse was coming, something no sorcery could withstand.
For now, though, Fistandantilus stood patiently in the center of the great room, in an open area surrounded by workbenches and shelves covered with spellbooks and strange things in glass jars. Around him lay a perfect ring, traced on the gray stone floor with silver dust. He had finished making preparations for the spell, which would spirit him out of this place… not just through space, but through time. He would vanish from Istar, and appear in the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas a hundred years hence. He had sealed the Tower-or rather, his one-time apprentice Andras had, with his dying breath. Only he could enter now without suffering a horrible death. There, in the Tower and in the future, he would be safe to continue his plans. There, he could still hope to open the Portal to the Abyss, and challenge the gods in their own home.