Chris Pierson - Divine Hammer

Cathan drew himself up, his empty eyes unwavering. “Not nearly as glad as I am, Holiness,” he said, his voice taut. “I see another has already taken my place, though.”

The Kingpriest looked at Lord Olin. The honorable knight flushed, looking at the floor.

“I thought you dead, my friend,” Beldinas said softly. “We all did. Now that we know otherwise, we rejoice. Don’t worry, we shall find a way to amend this error without offending. Come forward, Cathan.”

Cathan obeyed, his boots clacking upon the blue mosaic at the foot of the imperial dais.

He noted the fear still in Beldinas’s eyes as he halted before the throne. Both of them had changed, these past months. All around the hall, courtiers whispered to one another.

The Kingpriest and his first knight regarded one another. Finally, Quarath broke the stillness, his outraged whisper seeming shrill.

“Kneel before the Lightbringer,” he warned.

“No,” Cathan said, and drew Ebonbane.

The ring of the blade filled the hall, echoing from the crystal dome. Men and women cried out at the sight of naked steel within the basilica. Lord Olin stepped forward, reaching for his own sword, but Cathan froze him with a look. The new Grand Marshal fell back, looking uncertainly toward the throne.

“Be easy, Olin,” Beldinas declared. “Lord Cathan does not intend any harm. But-” he turned back toward Cathan “-I would like to know what you do intend, my friend.”

“I am not your friend, Pilofiro,” Cathan said. “Once I laid this sword at your feet because of my love for you. With it, I have killed in your name. But no more. I have seen firsthand the result of your leadership. Was Loscarcum what you intended?”

The Kingpriest looked stunned. “It was the god’s will,” he said firmly. “The sorcerers were evil. They had to be destroyed.”

“At what cost?” Cathan snapped. “A city, destroyed! Thousands of innocents, dead! And for what-a few Black Robes?”

“This crusade against darkness has come with a price,” Beldinas admitted, “but if good folk must die to bring about the end of evil, then it is the god’s-”

Cathan raised his sword and brought it down. It struck the stair with a ferocity that made the courtiers jump. Chips of marble flew.

“No!” Cathan exclaimed. “Don’t tell me it was Paladine’s will. This was your doing, Beldinas-and it is something Brother Beldyn never would have done, all those years ago. He would have abhorred such rampant death and destruction, and so do I. I will not be a part of this unholy crusade any longer.”

With that, he reached up, set Ebonbane’s tip against the collar of his tabard, and cut the garment off. The burning-hammer sigil split in two. Eyes blazing, he hurled the cloth down on the floor.

Again, tense silence. Cathan glared at the Kingpriest. Beldinas merely looked sad.

Everyone else stared, unsure what to do. Finally, Beldinas sighed and sat back in his throne.

“I once gave you back your life,” he said quietly.

“I gave it to you first,” Cathan replied, sheathing his blade. “Now I’m taking it back. Farewell, Holiness.”

With that, he turned and stalked away from the throne. Men and women parted before him as he went, whispering.

“Wait,” Beldinas called. “My friend-”

Without breaking stride, Cathan walked out of the Hall of Audience and the Temple. He left Istar that same day, and where he went no one could say.

Fifthmonth, 943 I.A.

The images would not go away.

Daltigoth, blackened by smoke, ashes and stone blown outward from a crater that gaped like a dying man’s scream. Men and women picking through the rubble, searching for the dead. Plagues of bloodflies and packs of feral dogs searching for other reasons.

Losarcum was worse. The stone blasted to gravel or melted like wax. Great chasms torn through the earth, their bottoms too deep to measure. A pool of black glass, the reflection of the lost obsidian needle trapped in its depths. Nothing moved, save for the occasional carrion bird circling above. Losarcum had become a city of the dead, a cursed place. In the tales of the desert folk who had once peopled it, such places were for ghouls who devoured the flesh of men. This was no tale, however. The City of Stone was home to nothing now.

Not even the spiders and snakes that usually ran rampant in the Sun’s Anvil.

My fault, thought Andras.

He lay in the darkness of the cave, too weak to rise. The water in the Pit of Summoning kept him from dying of thirst, but hunger had emaciated him, and trackless time alone in the dark had shattered his wits. His cheeks were sunken, his ribs poked against his skin, his hair and beard were wild. He had no idea how long he had been here, trapped. Long enough to have disposed of the quasitas, killing and eating them to sate his hunger. They had precious little meat, though, and tasted of brimstone and putrescence. Their bones littered the cave, cracked open, the marrow sucked out.

He’d lived in darkness for a long time-long enough to explore the whole place with his fingertips, memorizing every outcrop, every crack in the stone. Exploring had given him something to do, even as his faith that Fistandantilus would return dwindled. When, finally, he began to accept that the Dark One had abandoned him for good, he’d still clung to the wild hope that, one day, he would see again.

Then the day came, and he wished for blindness again.

When he saw it there, glimmering in the darkness, he’d been sure it was madness: the image of Daltigoth, standing proud at the meeting of its two rivers. The Tower erupting in a torrent, smashing the city, leaving it in flames. Losarcum was the next image-somewhere between two and four days later, was his best guess. It fell too, destroyed as its Tower exploded. The stranded survivors, horribly twisted by the unleashed magic, dwindled each day, until none remained beneath the baking sun. The two images stayed with him, glimmering in the shadows. He would have ripped out his own eyes to be rid of them, but the ruined cities remained even when he shut them.

He bided, each day an agony as he awaited whichever city would be next-Palanthas, probably, with Istar saved for last. No more images appeared, however, and winter had turned to spring. Daltigoth’s trees came into leaf, and the cacti around Losarcum burst into flower. That time was well past now, and the days wore on toward summer as Ergoth’s fields grew rich and green. Still no other images had come, which could only mean that both sides had agreed to a truce. The events he’d launched with his attack on the Divine Hammer at Lattakay were coming, at last, to an end.

He’d tried suicide. He’d walked to the edge of the summoning pool, intent on throwing himself in. He had grabbed up two sharp stones to pound them against his temples with all his might. He had made a crude blade out of quasito bone, to open his wrists or throat.

Each time, though, he’d gotten to the verge of doing the deed, then pulled back. He couldn’t go through with it, no matter how strongly the desire burned within him. Another compulsion always stayed him, forcing him to stop at the last moment. Finally, he could do nothing but lie broken, too far gone to do anything but stare at the ruins of the two fallen Towers and sob until his throat was raw.

“Nuitari,” he wept, over and over. “I did not mean this to happen. I only wanted revenge. .”

“And so you have it,” hissed a voice in the shadows one day.

He knew the voice, even as he rolled over to see better. He couldn’t feel the chill of Fistandantilus’s presence-but then, he couldn’t feel anything at all. Nonetheless, there was tin-hooded figure of the Dark One, just a step away.