Chris Pierson - Sacred Fire

And in Xak Tsaroth…

To his surprise, Cathan felt no fear.

He had faced death before … had, come to think of it, died before … and each time, there had been some kind of terror. Now, though, as he stood on the island and watched the distant smoke rise from Istar, he did not quail or shiver. All he felt was sorrow, at what had been lost. What could have been.

And could be again.

Opening his pouch, he pulled out the Peripas . They made a faint, musical sound as he held them up, and they flashed with light even though the pall hid the sun. There would never be another Istar, but the Disks remained. One day, a true church of the gods must rise again. That was why Paladine had bidden him bring them here. He had no idea how anyone would ever find them in the leavings of the coming disaster, but he knew someone would, some day. His faith told him so.

He heard screams from the city now: men and women and children knowing these were their last moments on Krynn. The better part of an hour had passed since the flash of flame rose beyond the Eastwalls, signaling the strike of the burning hammer. The shock waves still hadn’t come here-for the Lordcity was far away-but it would soon enough. Cathan looked back one last time at Xak Tsaroth, at the beauty that would be lost forever… then, holding the Disks close to his breast, he turned to gaze eastward once more.

The mountains trembled, and broke apart.

The temples shuddered, and fell.

Then the blast struck.

The noise was incredible, even hearing it from so far away. It slammed into Cathan, flattening him back against the headless statue, leaving no other sound but the ringing of absent bells. The statue cracked at the waist, and its upper half tumbled away from him, splashing into the water. He felt a series of terrible crashes and knew Xak Tsaroth was dying-domes collapsing, colonnades cracking, its very walls toppling, crushing those atop and beneath.

He didn’t watch. He didn’t want to see. Instead he kept his eyes on the lake, waiting for the sign, the cue to act. He’d seen it in the vision, just as he’d seen every moment that had happened since he left the Shinarite church this morning. Still, he felt no fear. He raised the Disks, pressing them to his lips.

“ Palado, mas pirhtas calsud ,” murmured. “ Adolas brigim paripud, e me anomud du tas rigo iudjn donbulas. Sifat. ”

Paladine, welcome my soul. Forgive the evils I have wrought, and take me to thy kingdom beyond the stars. So be it.

The faults that made the New Sea stretched far to the south. One, a deep underground cleft, ran right under Xak Tsaroth. Now, with a loud crack that nearly knocked Cathan off the spire, the ground buckled. Behind him, a great fissure opened and the dry tumbled in. Buildings spilled down the sides, exploding with blood and debris. A great gout of green dust billowed up.

Deafened by the blast, Cathan kept watching the water; and waiting… waiting …

There.

It started as a rippling on the lake’s surface, but quickly grew into something much greater, a swirling eddy that opened like some fell beast’s maw into a whirlpool. The bed of the lake had broken, and the water was draining out, pouring into the bottomless gulf, smothering those who yet breathed The level of the lake dropped almost instantaneously, laying bare its shores. White-foaming waves crested as the current dragged everything toward the vortex. Cathan stared into the yawning, hungry hole, and nodded to himself. Then he drew back his hand and flung the Peripas in.

The throw was perfect. The Disks glinted once, then disappeared into the mouth of the abyss.

Without knowing he was doing it. Cathan delved into his pouch again. Cold stung his fingers, sending daggers of pain slicing up his arm as he touched Fistandantilus’s spellbook; he almost snatched his hand away. But instead he tightened his grip and pulled out the tome. This had been in the vision too-for some reason, the god wanted him to obey the Dark One, and hurl the book after the Disks. It was foolish to do so, but he followed the vision anyway, slinging the book away. It spun lazily as it arced up, then dove down into the maw of the depths.

Another great crack, and the palace and the temple of Paladine dropped out of sight. With a groan, the earth closed over it. And now his island was trembling, the stone shifting mushily under his feet like sand. Sheets of rock broke away, sliding into the receding water. Cathan wearily pushed away from the statue, staggering to the island’s edge.

And jumped.

The water was frigid. It spun him around in circles, clogged his lungs and choked him as it dragged him toward its center. He stared into the center of the whirlpool that had taken the Disks, and the book, and now wanted him. The eddies swung him around and around, nearer with every pass. He shut his eyes.

I’m sorry, Blossom, he thought. I won’t be coming home.

Then he was falling… falling… platinum wings rose to meet him, bearing him away.

FOURTHMONTH, 3 A.C.

The tales were right, after all: the water was red. Bron had first heard of it a year ago, in an inn near Solanthus-a rough, crowded alehouse where the beer tasted like piss and someone took a knife in the gut almost every night. There were many taverns like it in Ansalon these days: places where folk could gather and trade stories of the world’s many woes. It had been a skinny, brown-skinned man who’d spoken of the red waters-a man with beads in his beard, marking him as Seldjuki by birth.

“I sailed it myself,” he’d said, taking a grim pull from a mug of something that smelled like lamp oil. “Not through the middle, mind-only madmen go that way, and they don’t come out again. But you don’t have to get out far from shore to see it, plain as the burning mountain. Red as blood… they say that’s what it is, the blood of drowned Istar.”

The others in the tavern had scoffed at him, or glared. More than a few had cursed the Kingpriest, and all of the damned Istarans-then the talk had turned to the gods, and it grew worse. The things men said these days would have gotten them arrested for blasphemy in an eyeblink, just a few years ago. Now, everyone hated the gods, dark and light alike.

Bron had listened to the people’s vituperations, his grip on his tankard tight, but he’d done nothing to stop the grumbling. He was one-the other knights had long since scattered-and they were many, bolstered by drink and anger. He’d learned, in the months after the Cataclysm, not to try to defend Paladine against the masses.

It was the same all over. Men reviled Beldinas as much as they’d once adored him, calling him Fumofiro -Doombringer- instead of his old epithets, but their hatred for the gods was much worse. Where was Paladine now? With cities in ruins, forests burned to ashes, new seas where land had been, and new land where seas had roiled… with all the plague and drought and famine rampant… with brother turning against brother the world over, where were the gods?

There could be only one answer, in the people’s minds. The gods had turned their backs on Krynn.

Bron didn’t believe that, but neither did he say so. He’d discarded his armor long ago, to eliminate all evidence of his former life. He’d seen more than one village where the corpses of priests swung from trees while ravens dug at their eyes. He’d seen churches ransacked and pillaged. He’d come to one town in time to find a band of screaming men and women dragging three bodies through the streets-bodies wearing the white surcoats of the Divine Hammer. He’d watched the mob cheer as they threw the corpses on a raging pyre, to burn as the Hammer itself had once burned evildoers. He’d watched them spit on the flames.