He did not loosen his hold. "It is coming. The Day of Wrath."
"Lord Soth — " she began.
"He couldn't stop it, Nikol!" Michael had to shout to be heard over the low rumble of thunder that shook the manor walls. "I don't know why or how or what happened, but he failed! Men do fail, you know! Even Knights of Solamnia. They're human, damn it, like the rest of us"
"I have faith in him!" Nikol cried angrily.
"He is a man. We must have faith in the gods." Saying this, reminding himself of it, Michael was calm. "This house, these walls are strong. Blessed, the knight said. Yes, here, inside these walls, we will be safe."
"No! It cannot be! He will stop it."
She broke free of his grasp, ran inside the small family chapel. Michael followed her, to try to reason with her. Looking around, he realized at once that this room — built in the castle's interior, without windows — was the safest place. Nikol was kneeling before the altar.
"Paladine! Be with Lord Soth! Accept his sacrifice, as you once accepted Huma's!"
The strange wind, hot and dry, blew harder and harder, shrieked about the castle walls with inhuman voices. Lightning slashed, split trees. Thunder shook the ground, like the footsteps of an angry giant.
All that morning the storm raged, growing more and more intense. The sun vanished. Day became darker than night. Violent winds blew, lifted huge trees from the ground, hurled them about like newly planted saplings. Those trees that held fast against the wind fell victim to the savage lightning. Michael, daring to leave the chapel, ventured back into his room, stared out the window.
Fires lit the darkness, trees consumed by flames. Grass fires scorched the land. Nikol, shivering, came to stand by his side. "The gods have forsaken us," she whispered.
"No," said Michael, taking her in his arms. "It is we who have forsaken them."
They returned to the chapel. The wind blew harder. The voices in it were horrible, conjuring up visions of dragons, screaming over their kill. It buffeted the castle walls, trying to beat them down. The earth began to shudder, as if the very ground was appalled at the horrors it was witnessing. The first quakes hit. The castle rocked and shivered. The two crouched before the altar, unable to move, unable to speak or even pray. Beyond the chapel, they could hear crashes, shattering cracks.
Michael knew they were doomed. The walls must collapse, the ceiling cave in. He held fast to Nikol's hands and began to describe, in a feverish voice, the beautiful bridge of starlight he'd seen before, the wondrous worlds where they soon would find peace and freedom from this terror.
Then it was over.
The tremors ceased. The storm abated, clouds blown away as if by a mournful sigh. All was quiet. They were not dead.
"We're safe, beloved!" Michael cried, not thinking of what he was saying. He clasped Nikol in his arms.
She was stiff, rigid in his grasp. Then, suddenly, she threw her arms around him, held him fast. They sank to the floor, before the altar of Paladine. Huddled in each other's grasp, they were grateful for the comfort of being together.
"'The land will be sundered, seas will rise, and mountains topple. Countless numbers will die. Countless more, who will live in the dark and terrible days to follow, will come to wish they had died.' That's what he said, the black-robed wizard. Why? Why did this happen, Michael?" Nikol cried brokenly. "Certainly, some deserved the gods' wrath — that horrible, fat cleric who came here before Nicholas died — but this terror has surely destroyed the innocent as well as the guilty. How can the gods, if they are good, do this?"
"I don't know," Michael said helplessly. "I wish I had the answer, but I don't."
"At least I'm not alone," Nikol continued softly. "You're here. I'm glad you're here, Michael. It's selfish of me, I know, but if you had left with the goddess, I think I would be dead by now."
He didn't answer. He couldn't. The words wouldn't come past the ache of love and longing.
"Hold me closer," she said, burrowing into his arms. He did as she commanded, pressed her head against his breast, bent, and kissed the shining hair. To his amazement, Nikol returned his kiss. Her lips met his hungrily.
"Nikol," he said, when he could breathe, "I'cve no right to ask this. You're the daughter of a knight. Your family is noble. My father was a shopkeeper in Xak Tsaroth, my mother a nomad, who roamed the plains. I have nothing to give…"
"I will marry you, Michael," she said.
"Nikol, think about what I said — "
"Michael," she whispered, laying her hand upon his lips. "You think about it. Does any of that matter now?"
Perhaps Paladine heard their vows of marriage, spoken silently in their hearts. Perhaps the god turned aside his wrath one moment to bless their union, for the manor walls continued to stand strong and sheltering above them.
When the morning came, a heavy sadness, mingled with their joy, oppressed them both. Nikol stood before the altar of Paladine, which now had a crack in it, traced the crack with her finger. "We will find out why, won't we, Michael," she said firmly. "We will find out why this happened. We will search until we discover the answer. Then you and I will make it right."
In a world of the faithless, you are the
Only one who is faithful. and, because of
That, you will be reviled, ridiculed,
Persecuted. But I see one who loves you,
Who will risk all to defend you.
The words of the black-robed wizard, Raistlin.
"Yes," Michael answered, as he would have answered yes to anything she asked of him at that moment. "We will search for the answer."
Part III
A cold and bitter winter closed in on them soon after the Cataclysm. Their small supply of food dwindled rapidly. The stream in which Michael fished vanished during the quakes, swallowed by the ground. A killing frost shriveled any plants that had survived the fires.
Then, one day, a small band of humans, traveling up from the south, had offered to trade game for shelter. The manor, they said, looking at it in awe, was one of the few buildings in these parts still standing. Michael agreed, was forced to eat animal flesh to stay alive. He hoped, all things considered, the goddess would forgive him.
But, once they were rested and had buried their dead, the refugees left, looking for new hunting grounds. Michael had figured, only this morning, that they had dried meat and berries to last them another few days. South, at least, there apparently was game to be had in the forests, the plains. Besides, Michael had a sudden urgent longing for his home.
"Xak Tsaroth," said Michael.
"What about it?" Nikol asked him.
"The Temple of Mishakal is there. And so are the holy disks. Why didn't I think of those sooner?" He began to pace the room excitedly.
"What disks? What are you talking about?"
"The Disks of Mishakal. All the wisdom of the gods are written on these disks. Don't you see, beloved? It's on those disks that we will find the answers 1"
"If there ARE answers," Nikol said, frowning. "We buried a child yesterday. A little child! What had that babe to do with Kingpriests or clerics? Why should the gods punish the innocent?"
"If we find the disks, we'll find the answers," he said.
"In Xak Tsaroth!" Nikol scoffed. "Don't you remember what those refugees told us about Xak Tsaroth?"
"I remember." Michael turned, started to walk away. Having been born and reared in Xak Tsaroth, he had listened in disbelief to the tales of its destruction, told by the refugees. He had to see for himself.
Nikol ran after him, laid a remorseful hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, dearest, truly I am. I wasn't thinking. I forgot that was your home once. We'll travel there. We'll leave tomorrow. We have nothing to keep us here. We would have had to leave soon anyway."
As they were leaving, Nikol pulled shut the castle's heavy oaken door, made to lock it. Then, abruptly, she changed her mind. "No," she said, shoving it wide open. "This home is blessed, as the knight said. Let it shelter those who
come. I have the feeling I will never see it again anyway."
"Don't speak words of ill omen," Michael warned her.
"It's not an ill omen," Nikol said quietly, looking up at him with a sad smile. "Our path lies far from here, I think."
She placed her hand upon the cold stone wall in final farewell, then the two gathered their meager belongings and started down the road, heading south.
If they had known how long the journey would take them, or how hard and dangerous it would be, they would have never left the castle's walls. They had been forewarned of terrible destruction farther south, but they were unprepared for the tremendous changes that had occurred, not the least of which was a sea where no sea had been before.
Reaching Caergoth, they were amazed to discover that the ground had sunk. Seawater, rushing in from the Simon Sea, now hid the scars of sundered lands. The two were forced to halt and work to pay their passage on a crude raft, run by a group of villainous-looking Ergothians, who had been separated by the sea from their homeland to the west.
The Ergothians ambushed them outside of Caergoth, demanded they hand over food and valuables. Nikol, disguised as a knight, refused. A fight ensued that left no one seriously injured, but gained Nikol the men's respect. They eyed Michael's blue robes with sneering suspicion but accepted Nikol's explanation that "her brother" had made a vow to their dying mother to remain faithful to his goddess.
As it turned out, the Ergothians were basically honest folk, made savage in their ways by the hardships they had been forced to endure. Nikol, maintaining her disguise as a knight, aided them in wiping out a band of goblins that had been raiding their hovels. Michael showed them plants and herbs they could use to supplement what had been a steady diet of fish. In return, the Ergothians ferried them across what they were calling "Newsea" and promised that they would have a return voyage, should they care to come back. Which they soon would, they promised, once they saw what had become of Xak Tsaroth.
On the opposite shore, Michael and Nikol soon lost their way, wandered in the mountains for weeks. No map was trustworthy. The land had altered and shifted beyond recognition. Roads that once led somewhere now wound up nowhere — or worse. Survival itself was a struggle. Game was scarce. Farmland was either scorched by drought or flooded by newly created rivers. Famine and disease drove people to flee wrecked homes and villages and seek a better life that, rumor had it, was always over the next mountain. Even good men and women became desperate as they listened to their children cry from hunger. Rumor had it that several elven cities in nearby Qualinost had been attacked by humans.
This must have been true, for when Michael and Nikol accidentally came too near the borders of that land, a flight of elven arrows warned them to turn aside.
Nikol wore her sword openly; the bleak and chill sun shone on the blade. Her armor and breastplate and her knightly air of confidence daunted many. Most robbers were nothing more than ruffians, who wanted food in their bellies, not a sharp blade. But, on occasion, she and Michael met with those who were well armed and were not afraid of a "beardless knight."
Nikol and Michael fought when they were cornered, ran when they were outnumbered. The cleric had taken to carrying a stout staff, which he learned to swing with clumsy effect, if not skill. He fought for Nikol's sake, more than his own. Plunged into despair over the chaos he saw in the world, he would, if he had been alone, gone the way of so many others before him.
Nikol credited him with keeping her alive during the dark days before the Cataclysm. Now it was she who returned the favor. Her love alone bore him along. Michael even ceased to ask Mishakal's forgiveness when he bashed a head. Eventually, after many months of weary travel, they reached their destination.
"The Great City of Xak Tsaroth, whose beauty surrounds you…" Michael whispered the inscription on the fallen obelisk, traced it with his hand on the broken stone. His voice died before he could finish reading. He lowered his head, ashamed to be seen weeping.
Nikol patted his shoulder. Her hand was roughened, its skin tough and calloused, cracked and bleeding from the cold, scarred from battle. But its touch was gentle.
"I don't know why I'm crying," Michael said harshly, wiping his hands over his cheeks before his tears froze on his skin. "We've seen so many horrible sights — brutal death, terrible suffering. This" — he gestured at the fallen obelisk — "this is nothing but a hunk of stone. Yet, I remember…"
His head sank into hands, hurting sobs wrenched him. He thought he'd prepared himself. He'd thought he was strong enough to return, but the devastation was too much, too appalling.
From this point, long ago, one could have seen the city of Xak Tsaroth, heard its life in the throbbing, pulsing cries of its vendors and hawkers, the shrill laughter of its children, the rush and bustle of its streets. The silence was the most horrible part of his homecoming. The silence and the emptiness. They told him Xak Tsaroth was gone, sunk into the ground on which it had been built. He had not believed them. He had hoped. Bitterly, he cursed his hope.
Nikol pressed his arm in silent sympathy, then drew away. His grief was private; she did not feel that even she had a right to share in it. Hand on her sword hilt, she kept watch, staring out over the ruins that surrounded the obelisk, peering intently into the shadows beyond.
Gradually, Michael's sobs lessened. Nikol heard him draw a shivering breath.
"Do you want to keep going?" she asked, purposefully cool and calm.
"Yes. We've come this far" He sighed. "It's one thing to see strange cities lying in ruins, another to see one's home."
Nikol climbed on the obelisk, used it as a bridge to cross the swamp water. Michael, after a moment's hesitation, followed after her. His feet trod over the inscription:
THE GODS REWARD US IN THE GRACE OF OUR HOME.
Grace. The land was barren, almost a desert, its trees charred stumps, its flower ing plants and bushes nothing but soft ash. There was no sign of any living being, not even animal tracks.
Michael looked out over the ruins of the city's outskirts. "I can't believe it," he said softly to himself. "Why did I come? What did I expect to find here?"
"Your family," said Nikol quietly.
He looked at her in silence a moment, then slowly nodded. "Yes, you're right. How well you know me."
"Perhaps we will find them" she said, forcing a smile. "People might live around here still."
Nikol tried to sound cheerful, for Michael's sake. She did not believe herself, however, and she knew she hadn't fooled Michael. The quiet was oppressive, perhaps because it was not true quiet. A thin undercurrent of sound disturbed the surface. She could tell herself it was the wind, sighing through the broken branches of dead trees, but its sorrow pierced her heart.
Michael shook his head. "No, if they survived, which I doubt, they must have fled into the plains. My mother's people came from there. She would have gone back to find them."
Nikol paused, uncertain of her way. "You know, I could almost think that Xak Tsaroth IS haunted, that its dead do lament"
Michael shook his head. "If any of the dead walk these broken streets, it is those who are unable or unwilling to pass beyond, to find the mercy of the gods."
What mercy? Nikol almost asked bitterly, but she bit her tongue, kept silent. Their relationship over these past hard months had deepened. Love was no longer the splendid, perfect bridal garment. The fabric was worn, now, but it fit better, was far more comfortable. Neither could imagine a night spent outside the refuge of the other's arms. But there were several rents and tears in the shining fabric.
The terrible things they'd seen had left their mark upon them both. When these cuts were mended, they would serve to make the marriage stronger, but now the arguments were growing bitter, had inflicted wounds that were still tender and sore to the touch.
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