Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [142]
Thanks to this victory, the church of Paladine rose to ascendance in Istar and the city’s prosperity increased, so much so that Istar became the capital of a mighty empire. Its leader was the head of the church, who called himself the Kingpriest.
During this time, a conflict known as the Three-Thrones War (in which three successors vied for the throne) turned popular opinion against the wizards in the Tower of High Sorcery. The Kingpriest actually sent a force against the Tower, but he was unable to penetrate its protective grove. Bloodshed was avoided, and for generations the wizards and the priests continued to live under an unofficial, uneasy truce. Peace came to an end when a Kingpriest named Belindas Pilofiro took the throne.
Treachery, misfortune, and violence brought about a complete rupture between the wizards and the clerics. Eventually, the Kingpriest formed the Knights of the Divine Hammer and sought to attack two of the Towers of High Sorcery. Rather than allow their powerful magic to fall into the hands of those who might misuse it, the wizards themselves destroyed two of their Towers and the cities in which they stood. Terrified by such power, the Kingpriest negotiated surrender terms with the wizards.
To save their Orders, the wizards agreed to withdraw to the Tower of High Sorcery in the forest of Wayreth and to abandon the Towers of Istar and Palanthas and give them to the church.
The Kingpriest was not quite sure what to do with these trophies of his victory. He briefly entertained the idea of making the Tower of Istar his private dwelling, but eventually settled upon an idea suggested by his advisor, the Silvanesti elf cleric, Quarath. The Tower of Istar was rededicated to holding the sacred artifacts of heretical religions. The massive chamber in which the artifacts were stored was named Solio Febalas—the Hall of Sacrilege.
At first only the prized relics of dark and false gods adorned the hall, but the Kingpriest’s zeal was great, and soon objects sacred to the gods of Neutrality were added to the storehouse as well. Eventually even artifacts of the gods of the good pantheon found their way into Solio Febalas.
As the power of the Kingpriest grew, so did his pride. He began to see himself as a god. At this, the gods were alarmed, and when the Kingpriest failed to heed their warnings, the gods came together to deliver their terrible punishment. Earthquakes sundered the Tower of Istar. Fire destroyed it from within. The gods threw down the fiery mountain from the heavens, and history records that the remains of the Tower of Istar were completely destroyed, along with the once-glorious city in which it stood.
THE TOWER RESTORED
The ruins of the Tower of Istar rested under the sea for many mortal generations, holding within it powerful and dangerous treasures. The gods of magic planned to eventually restore the Tower, planning to direct the Orders of High Sorcery to raise it back up from the sea. They did not believe that the world was yet ready to handle the dangerous artifacts that lay within and so these plans were destined for a distant future—one that would never come to pass.
Instead came the unexpected release of Chaos and the subsequent war that came near to destroying Krynn. Gods fought alongside mortals and the world was saved, only to be snatched away by Queen Takhisis and carried by her into another part of the universe. An Age of Mortals began, an age presumably without