“A good story, but don’t assume I believe it just because Andropinis spreads it across the sky,” Rikus said.
“Believe it,” said Sadira. “On my way to the Pristine Tower, I saw halflings and stone just like that. So far, they’re telling the truth.”
“We’ve no reason to lie,” snapped Andropinis. “We care nothing for your opinion.”
The sorcerer-king waved his hand. The Ringing Mountains receded into the distance, until they looked like no more than blue clouds hanging low on the horizon. In their place stretched a vast, featureless plain of mud, as brown as dung and as thick as clay. In the center of the flat rose a single spire of porous white stone, capped by a beautiful citadel with alabaster walls and a keep of white onyx.
“The Pristine Tower!” Sadira gasped.
A long file of halflings left the citadel, descending the narrow staircase that spiraled down the outside of the spire. Their tabards hung off their bodies in dingy strips, while their hair cascaded over their shoulders in tangled snarls. Their features had grown haggard and wild, and they gestured with the quick, darting movements typical of the feral race Rikus had known during his own time.
The halflings started across the brown plain toward the Ringing Mountains. The mud cleaved to their feet like torch pitch, and soon they could not take a step without also raising a huge clump of brown earth. In their wake sprouted tall grasses, leafy bushes, and magnificent trees that loomed above the tableland like towers. Soon, the plain became a verdant paradise, teeming with foliage of every sort.
Creatures began to appear in this forest: horn-covered lizards, bright-feathered birds, and graceful herd-beasts such as Rikus had never seen, with racks of white horns and long thin limbs. Some of the animals perished almost immediately, falling prey to the great hunting cats that prowled the newborn wilderness, while others lived long enough to create others of their kind.
The flowering of this new paradise did not come without pain. As the halflings traveled across plain, the weak collapsed and were abandoned where they lay. Their bodies began to transform into strange shapes. One grew stocky and hair-covered, while another tripled his height without gaining much bulk. Still others became both thicker of limb and taller, and some developed scales, sprouted feathers, or even grew carapaces. By the time the surviving halflings had reached the distant mountains, they had left more races behind than Rikus could count. He recognized many of them, such as the dwarves, elves, and humans. Others, he had never seen, or he only knew about from legends. There were frail, winged characters even smaller than halflings, and ugly swine-faced beings that could scarcely be called people. Like the animals, many of these individuals perished quickly, while others went on to populate the world with whole races of their own kind.
“Realizing their own vanity had destroyed their civilization, the halflings seeded Athas with the beginning of a new world,” said the Oba. “This is the Green Age, the age before magic, when the Way dominated the world.”
As she spoke, villages and castles sprang up in the forest, rapidly growing into walled towns and cities connected by an intricate series of cobblestone roads. Powerful mindbenders wandered the wooded lanes on floating ivory platforms, traveling from their majestic towers to the sylvan citadels of the elves and the gloomy cities of the dwarves.
Andropinis gestured, and the scene shifted to an isolated turret in one of the smaller villages, where a single figure sat by a glass window, poring over a stack of books. There was no way to describe the man’s appearance except as hideous, for he had a huge head with a flat, grossly elongated face. His eyes were half-covered by flaps of skin, while his long nose, lacking a bridge, ended in three flaring nostrils. He had a small, slitlike mouth with tiny teeth and a drooping chin. His body was contorted and weak, with humped shoulders and gangling arms.
The figure looked up from his book and held his palm over a potted lily growing in the windowsill. The plant quickly withered and died. He tossed a pinch of dust into the air, and a gray fog filled the room.
“Rajaat came to us early in the Green Age, one of the many hideous accidents spawned from the Rebirth,” said the Oba. “His only blessing was a supreme intellect, which he used to become the first sorcerer. He spent centuries trying to reconcile his brutal appearance with his human spirit. In the end, even his powerful mind could find no answer. He came to revile himself as nothing but a deformed accident.
“Soon, Rajaat turned his hate outward. He declared the Rebirth a mistake and proclaimed all the races it had spawned to be monsters. He dedicated himself to wiping the blight of their existence from the world, so that he might return Athas to the harmony and glory of the Blue Age.”
The gray haze faded. Rajaat stood atop the Pristine Tower, looking out through a crystal cupola. He seemed immeasurably older, with long shocks of gray hair, a wrinkled face, and white, burning eyes. A company of armored figures marched out of the base of the keep. They descended the tower’s spiraling staircase and went into the wilderness. Soon, great patches of forest began to wither and die as they waged a terrible war.
“He created us-his champions-to lead the armies of the Cleansing Wars,” said the Oba. “Rajaat told us to destroy all the new races, or they would spawn monsters like him and overrun the world.”
The forests steadily vanished, leaving most of Athas the barren and lifeless place that Rikus knew so well. Then, abruptly, the destruction ceased, and the champions returned to the Pristine Tower.
“We had almost won,” said Andropinis. “Then we realized Rajaat was mad.” He sounded regretful, perhaps even angry, that they had not finished the war. “We stopped fighting.”
“You didn’t stop because Rajaat was mad. That had to be clear all along,” Sadira said. “You stopped because you learned the truth about who would survive when he returned the world to the Blue Age.”
“That’s right,” admitted the Oba. “All during the Cleansing Wars, Rajaat told us that humans would be the only race left when we finished. We didn’t learn that he was lying until it was almost too late.”
“And then you rebelled, imprisoning Rajaat,” finished Sadira.
Andropinis allowed his spell to fade. “I see you know the rest of the story.”
“Not all of it,” said Sadira. “How did Borys lose the Dark Lens? I’d think he would be more careful with something so valuable.”
“The transformation into a Dragon is a difficult one,” answered the Oba. “Shortly after we changed him, Borys lost his mental balance and went on a rampage. No one realized the Lens had been stolen until he recovered-a century later.”
“I don’t believe this tale of yours,” Rikus said. “If Rajaat was trying to give the world back to the halflings, why did he make his champions humans? Why didn’t he use halflings?”
“He couldn’t make them sorcerers,” answered the Oba. “Because their race harkens back to the Blue Age, before the art of sorcery existed, they cannot become sorcerers.”
“You’re lying,” Rikus said. “I’ve seen halflings use magic.”
“Elemental magic, yes-like Caelum’s sun-magic or Magnus’s windsinging,” said Sadira. “They draw their powers directly from the inanimate forces of the world: wind, heat, water, and rock. But normal sorcery draws its power from the life force of plants and animals.”
Rikus started to object that Sadira drew her power from the sun, then thought better of it. Her sorcery could no longer be considered normal.
“I think the sorcerer-kings have told us the truth,” Sadira said.
“Then give us the Lens,” said Hamanu, moving forward. “It’s the only way we can keep Rajaat imprisoned.”
“The Dark Lens isn’t here,” replied Sadira. “Tithian took it.”
“Sacha and Wyan told Tithian that Rajaat would make him a sorcerer-king,” the mul added. “We think he’s on his way to free Rajaat.”