Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [141]
“No one, my lord.”
“That is well. Mina,” called out Nuitari, “I don’t believe I have had a chance to welcome you to my home. I trust your stay will be a long and pleasant one. Pleasant for us, though not, I fear, for you. By the way, you have not thanked me for saving your life.”
Mina ceased her restless pacing. Striding over to the wall, she glared at him defiantly, her amber eyes flaring. She called out to him—he could see her mouth moving.
“I am not a reader of lips, but I don’t believe she is expressing her gratitude, my lord,” observed one of the Black Robes.
“No, I don’t believe she is.” Nuitari smiled broadly and bowed mockingly.
No one could hear Mina’s curses, not even the gods. She struck her hands against the wall that was smooth and clear as ice. She struck it again and again, hoping to find a crack, a crevice, a flaw.
Nuitari was admiring. “She is truly magnificent, as I said to Chemosh. Notice this, gentlemen. She has no fear. She is weak from her ordeal, half-dead, yet she would like nothing better than to find a way to get at you two and rip out your hearts. Use her as you will, but guard her well.”
“Trust us, my lord,” said both Black Robes.
Nuitari turned from Mina back to the God’s Eye bowl to see the illusion of Mina standing beside Chemosh, gazing down upon him in wistful sorrow.
“Look at that.” Nuitari made a disdainful gesture, indicating the misery of the god. “Chemosh is convinced that his lover is dead, that nothing remains to him but her spirit. He weeps. How pitiful. How sad.” Nuitari chuckled. “How very useful for us.”
“I must admit, my lord,” said one of the wizards, “I had some reservations about this plan of yours. I would not have thought it possible to deceive a god.”
Nuitari’s thoughts went to his mother.
“Only one who is weak,” said Nuitari grimly. “And then only once.”
Note: For more detailed information on the various topics presented in this Appendix, readers are referred to: The DRAGONLANCE Campaign Setting, published by Wizards of the Coast; The Towers of High Sorcery, a DRAGONLANCE d20 System Supplement, published by Sovereign Press; and The Kingpriest Trilogy, written by Chris Pierson, published by Wizards of the Coast.
nce a powerful bastion of knowledge and magic, the Tower of High Sorcery in the city of Istar rose to glory, then suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of religious zealotry. The structure was almost completely destroyed during the Cataclysm and lay buried in darkness while the waters of the Maelstrom churned around it. Now the Tower has been rebuilt in secret, a stronghold for Nuitari the Black, and it has acquired a new name—the Tower of the Blood Sea.
HISTORY
The mighty wizard Kharro the Red sent members of the Conclave to find locations ideal for the construction of the Towers of High Sorcery, places where magical energies would be their strongest. A powerful White-robed wizardess named Asanta chose an insignificant town named Istar as the site of one Tower, much to Kharro’s ire. It wasn’t until Asanta shared her vision of Istar’s future glory that the leader of the Conclave approved.
Raising the Tower became the life’s work of Asanta, and as an old woman she led the powerful incantation that created the Tower from the bones of the earth. The beautiful, crystalline structure stood in strange contrast to the crude huts that surrounded it. Asanta died in peace, knowing that one day Istar would match her Tower’s glory. Sadly, her foresight did not reveal to her that Istar would also be the instrument of the Tower’s destruction.
The wizards who dwelled in Istar became instrumental in bringing peace and order to the surrounding lands and contributed greatly in the town’s rising prosperity. For long years, they battled Istar’s enemies and the forces of evil. People looked to magic as their savior, and magic always answered.
When the world was threatened by the Dark Queen, Takhisis, and her evil dragons during the Third Dragon War, the Conclave of Wizards devised a desperate plan to counter