Hurriedly, Candlemas looked over the smeary lines to familiarize himself with the spell, for he'd only get one chance to read it aloud. The lines would disappear as p.r.o.nounced, and botching it, or halting halfway, would halt the spell, with no second chance. He couldn't get any closer to the star, thirty feet away, without shriveling. He only hoped the crazy magic washing the room didn't disrupt his spell.

Glancing back at Sunbright, yelling for Knucklebones, and sucking a deep breath, he grabbed Aquesita's hand. But the n.o.blewoman jerked away. "You can't enchant here! Not now! You'll steal the power Karry needs! You can't-Wait! There! Feel it?"

They'd braced their backs in the doorway to keep from tumbling into the hot, whirling room, but now, slowly, like a whale surfacing under a boat, the floor tilted and came upright. Within a minute, the room had stabilized, no longer shuddering.

Sunbright spat dust and blood, slung his sword one more time to behead a mad apprentice, called again for Knucklebones. Bodies writhed all around, some trapped under debris, some crawling to reach him. Blood powdered white ran across the floor under his moosehide boots, making the tilted footing even more treacherous. Bracing his back on the doorway, he planted a boot against the beam to shift it lest it roll back on him. Knucklebones, dirty as an alley rat, watched both ways to see if more berserkers came running. Then, flicking her hair from her face, snorting dust, she clambered over the wreckage and grabbed Sunbright's brawny hand.

"I don't know if more will come!"

The barbarian glanced into the room over a cowering Candlemas and Aquesita.

"They won't have anyone to protect in a moment!" Sunbright yelled, "Look!"

Chanting, Karsus floated higher, grew larger, until he hovered above the high, sundered walls. He was almost a G.o.d. With a few more steps he'd leave humanity behind.

Karsus, and the star behind him, began to pulse with white-hot light. Lightning sizzled and crackled around his frame, and he grew bigger than ever, until he was three times the height of a man, so bloated with magic he must have weighed thousands of pounds. His voice was no longer a wheezy whine, but a resounding boom like rolling thunder. He drew magic from the star until even his toes sparkled, and he seemed to stand on a cloud of his own making, a cloud of star energy.

Above, the cloud face of Lady Mystryl retreated. Even she couldn't withstand the driving force of the star power Karsus controlled. He flared like a sun of blistering magic, and Mystryl faded back, withdrew, like thunderclouds pushed by a hurricane. Along the horizon, sunlight leaked and cast long shadows across her cloudy face. Karsus controlled the sky, moved the elements, stole the power of a weather G.o.d, like Selune, or Shar, or the Earthmother-or Mystryl herself.

"See!" Aquesita's cheeks were wet as she cried out, "See? He's saved the city! Everything will be all right! You needn't leave us, Candlemas!"

The pudgy mage doubted that. A world ruled by a G.o.d like Karsus would be a dangerous, messy place to live. The new G.o.d's capricious whims would make puppets and playthings of people, turn the world into a toy. Secretly, Candlemas sided with Mystryl, but even the Mother of All Magic had retreated before the former human, Karsus the Mighty, the All-High. Karsus the G.o.d.

And who knew but that this G.o.d, mounting into the sky, wouldn't let his former city drop away from his feet?

Then he jerked, for Aquesita screamed.

The room suddenly swarmed with tornados.

In an eyeblink, as if a nest of giant wasps had been smashed, tornado beings spun around the room, a dozen or more. They were impossible to see clearly, for they rotated like buzzing tops, spinning cones of gray stone except for diamond-tipped tails that winked with a thousand facets in the meager daylight.

The mad scene grew crazier as the tornados bobbed and weaved and spun. Then, before the watchers' eyes had barely focused, the Phaerimm bounced into the air and converged on Karsus.

The huge glowing mage shrieked once, a word Candlemas and Sunbright and Knucklebones and Aquesita finally understood: "My enemies!"

Chapter 22.

Shrieking, Karsus flung out his arms and fired spells at random to protect himself. Black bolts blew holes in the walls. Frost seared floating corpses and extinguished flaming books. Pulses of rainbow light threw wild colors over spinning splinters of wood. Water jets filled the air with steam and rain.

At the same time, wrenched apart by the planar stress of pa.s.sing from their dimension into the dimension of humans, four of the twelve Phaerimm exploded. Tremendous, punishing blasts, and chunks of rock-like bodies gouged craters in the stone floors, ripped holes in walls, and shattered the furniture that still whirled and fluttered around the room like demented birds.

Candlemas stood dry-mouthed, unable to believe the raw power he saw displayed. Karsus was close to becoming a G.o.d, and not a minor deity, either, but a G.o.d who could rule a world for millennia.

Yet this ongoing, disastrous battle between G.o.dling, G.o.ddess, and ancient evil couldn't last. Someone had to win, and live, and someone to lose, and die.

Whatever the outcome, it was no safe place for mortals.

Candlemas barely ducked before a hunk of rocky flesh slammed the corridor wall, shattering plaster into crumbles and dust. Wildly, the mage grabbed Aquesita, Sunbright, and Knucklebones and pulled them close. The fighters had staved off the berserkers, now reduced to a gory pile in the hallway. They hunkered close to the mage, the source of their only salvation. For with the Phaerimm attack, Karsus had been distracted, and the city's floor was tilting once more.

Candlemas yelled, "Hang on to me! I'll only have one chance to read this spell!"

Aquesita stared into the room at her battling cousin, the almost G.o.d. "I don't-"

"You must!" The mage screamed and clutched her hand. In a loud, clear, shaking voice, he began to read, enchanted words vanishing as he pa.s.sed them by, magic crackling in the wrinkled paper.

"Realms of fire! Clouds of air! Help us mount the silver stair!"

Despite the blistering defense, the animate tornados crashed into Karsus from all sides. Magical beings themselves, they easily penetrated his personal shields, and stone-like bodies brutally crushed his bones and smashed flesh. Flailing, Karsus fell heavily, half on, half off a workshop table. The Phaerimm kept after him, driving close to sting with their tails, batter with spinning bodies, and bite with granite-edged mouths.

Yet Karsus drove back the whirling bodies, striking with lightning-laced fists as pure star magic crackled and spat. The Phaerimm whirled faster, pounding the mage in desperate fury, as rocks on the sh.o.r.e slam a ship run aground. But Karsus was infused with super heavy magic and star-metal and genius, and gradually he beat them back, until they whirled harmlessly, buzzing in angry frustration like bees. The room smelled of ozone and brimstone, molten metal, charred wood, and rain.

Flaring like a new star of white-hot energy, Karsus hoisted himself into the air and drew the city back level and flat. With a shrug, Karsus brushed the spinning Phaerimm back dozens of feet. With another shrug, he cast the outside walls away, so they toppled out of sight to let the day in, as if Karsus had outgrown their confines, like a moth shedding a coc.o.o.n to become a b.u.t.terfly. The walls tipped and shattered into stones and beams and plaster.

The heroes huddled close around the chanting Candlemas, shut their eyes in antic.i.p.ation of being crushed in rubble, but found the corridor and the rest of the building intact, the flagstones solid under their feet. A neat trick, almost a miracle, the first by a man almost a G.o.d.

Floating past the ruined walls and shorn roof, Karsus boomed his challenge, "Mystryl! I'll have your power!"

High above, covering the sky from horizon to horizon, the G.o.ddess manifested as thunderclouds was in full retreat. She drew back, still remote, calm-faced, with dark, staring eyes wide as mountain lakes. As her retreat continued, Sunbright and Knucklebones and Aquesita wondered where she'd go, where she'd hide from the power-stealing Karsus.

Only Candlemas couldn't see, for he doggedly read his scroll. He was almost to the bottom, and the four humans sensed the magic take effect. Sunbright felt lightheaded and ethereal, as if he dreamed awake, the same as when he'd been drawn into the future by that long spell of not-time. Knucklebones hugged Sunbright's arm as her bones and heart went hollow. And Aquesita, one hand trapped by Candlemas, was torn between a distant other world she'd never known, and her familiar homeland that was falling apart before her eyes.

"Look!" cried Knucklebones. "Lady Mystryl is-"

"Gone!"

Sweeping her arms wide, closing her volcanic eyes, Mystryl, Lady of Mystery, Controller of the Weave, ceased to be.

In a flash, the sky was clear.

Where clouds had been stacked thick and dark and roiling, there was suddenly nothing, only blue sky so vast and deep the heroes thought they saw stars. A brilliant sun, sharp and hot as if rainwashed, glared overhead. It was high noon on a spring day. The heroes' shadows lay almost directly under their feet.

But their feet were lifting from the ground, for the city was dropping.

Sunbright scooped Knucklebones, Aquesita, and the still-chanting Candlemas into his brawny arms and kicked out a foot to wedge himself between corridor walls. Already debris was sliding out the doorway into the ruins of the workshop.

Half clinging, half pushing, Aquesita pointed mutely at a craggy lump in the distance. The sister city Ioulaum dropped like the rock it was.

Tiny objects like shed feathers could be seen trailing upward, left behind: pennants, tents, banners, awnings, anything that might float on a breeze. The enclave built on an inverted mountain tipped, spun, capsized, then struck the side of a mountain. A corner burst off, a hundred buildings tumbling free like ants spilled from a hill. The face of the city struck, an entire culture destroyed. The enclave skipped sideways like a flung rock and exploded into fist-sized chunks of white and yellow and red. In three seconds, buildings, universities, streets, homes and tens of thousands of people were wiped out.

As would happen now to the enclave Karsus.

In a second, the heroes understood what happened, for the G.o.ddess's act had been clear, had communicated itself to them so that all people-all survivors-might comprehend. And remember.

Rather than allow herself to be usurped, rather than have her powers stolen, rather than let Karsus become a G.o.d, the Mother of All Magic sacrificed herself. With the last powers of this greatest of G.o.ds, she wished herself out of existence, and vanished.

And took all the magic in the world with her.

The Phaerimm, who were magic to their core, disappeared.

Karsus was left alone in the room, hovering, struggling to keep the magic within himself. But the might of the fallen star was gone, vanished, as if it had never existed. The mage clenched his fists and cried in rage and frustration and sorrow. For the first time in his life, Karsus was denied something he wanted, and he would destroy his world to get it.

Having seen none of this, Candlemas had hurried, barked the last of his spell just in time. His enchantment had taken root in the past, and already the four people faded. Exhausted physically and mentally, the pudgy mage dropped the empty paper and tightened his sweaty grip on his lady's hand.

But Aquesita tore away, screaming, "No! I won't desert the empire in its hour of need!"

A ghostly Candlemas gave a hollow croak and grabbed for her. Only Sunbright's st.u.r.dy hand- transparent as gla.s.s-kept him from breaking the spell's enchantment.

Stumbling into the ravaged workshop, a now solid, worldly Aquesita tripped over sliding wreckage and reached high to catch the hem of her cousin's tattered white robe.

"Karry, hang on! You must save-" That was all Candlemas, Sunbright, and Knucklebones heard, for they disappeared. Their ghostly eyes misted over, like a curtain of fog shrouding them, until Aquesita and the flaring, howling Karsus were something from a dream.

Only Aquesita, Karsus's cousin and sole living relative, the one person in the empire who loved him for himself, saw his final moments.

Struggling to retain his magical might, Karsus employed every holding spell he knew. But the mixed and fading and fluky magic betrayed him, even as he'd betrayed himself in trying to steal the powers of the G.o.ddess who controlled all magic at its roots. His cousin watched in horror as Karsus, savior of the Netherese Empire, was transformed into stone, larger than life, denser than granite, redder than blood.

By then, the enclave had tipped almost vertically. Karsus, once a G.o.d, now a red stone statue, tipped far into s.p.a.ce and plummeted, and his loving, ill-fated cousin fell after.

For an instant, Karsus understood what had happened, how Mystryl had sacrificed herself for the common good of G.o.d and man, an unselfish sacrifice he never could have conceived of. And how his loving cousin had sacrificed herself believing in him, as the empire had believed in him.

And how he'd betrayed them all.

With this last, G.o.dlike insight, Karsus's selfish heart broke.

Even as, seconds later and far below, the statue-man drove into the ground and came to rest, while the greatest city of the empire, named after its greatest mage, exploded into fragments.

In the s.p.a.ce of half a minute, the Netherese Empire, beloved of the G.o.ds, was snuffed out like a candle flame.

That was bad.

That was good. Their empire is finished.

As are we, almost.

Never. The Phaerimm are eternal.

And greatly reduced in numbers.

No matter. We survive.

With the humans reduced to flint axes and fire, we shall even prosper.

Increase in number.

And destroy humankind once and for all.

Let us so pledge.

Aye, so pledge we all.

On a surprisingly peaceful mountainside, miles away from the falling Empire of Netheril, sat a star- eyed girl named Mystra.

A smile crept across her face, a tingle ran through her body, and a soft voice-a cloud's voice- whispered in her ear, "Soon."

Still tightly clutching Knucklebones and Candlemas, Sunbright blinked and cast about. Spring sunlight filtered through the tops of red pines and pin oaks. Scarlet cardinals and yellow goldfinches flitted through rhododendron bushes. A warm balm of pine sap and churned earth and oak tannin kissed the air. Somewhere close, a snuffling badger rooted under rocks. Behind was a low hillside cleft like a loaf of bread, marred by a shadowed crater. In the churned loam and sand before the cave were footprints of moosehide boots and warped sandals. The tracks went into the cave but didn't come out.

Sunbright raised on tiptoes and peeked. Neither he, nor Candlemas, nor the star, were inside.

So they'd returned only moments after leaving.

They were home.

Blowing a great sigh of relief, Sunbright released his death grip on his two comrades. He laughed aloud, saying, "Well, Candlemas! You're a genius! You not only brought us home . .."

His merriment died as he remembered: there had been four people when their journey back had started.

Knucklebones grunted with relief and tugged her worn leathers into place. Curiously, she stared around at the northern forest, familiarizing herself with the terrain, wary of enemies, for old habits die hard. But just as quickly, she saw to the pudgy mage.

Candlemas slumped to the ground, landing with a thump on his fat rump. With sandy hands he rubbed a face still singed by Karsus's fire blast. He wept openly, blubbering and hiccuping like a baby.

Sunbright and Knucklebones said nothing, just sat on either side of him to catch their breath.

Knucklebones stroked his knee, Sunbright his back.

Eventually the mage cried himself out. Then slowly, his voice cracked and broken, he talked.

"She didn't understand. She thought Karsus could save the empire. She was as blind as him, seeing only what she wanted. She had the same dream, that the empire would always grow, always expand, forever. But nothing lasts forever."

"No," Sunbright murmured. "That was the death of the Netherese Empire, which the Neth thought would outlast the sun. In three hundred and fifty-eight years, and a few minutes, it's naught but a memory."

"Like Sita." Candlemas croaked. "I loved her so...."

"And she loved you," Knucklebones cooed. "But it was not to be. The fates decided otherwise."

"Oh!" The mage snuffled. "Oh, you were right, Sunbright!"