At first Belize had been unable to even open the book. Neutralizing the magical seals had taken three weeks, and that was only the first hurdle. The book had opened to reveal a magical script that was completely unknown to modern scholars. That mind-twisting grammar, for it was not truly a language, had to be deciphered and then painstakingly translated.
The writings told of an ancient place Belize had heard of long ago, in the history lessons of his apprenticeship. The Lost Citadel was the first bastion of magical knowledge. In PC 2645, at the end of the Second Dragon War, the dragons had returned to Krynn against their queen's vow and were ravaging the land. Three wild mages summoned potent magic and commanded the ground to swallow the dragons for all time. The dragons were defeated, but the magic ran amuck and thousands died. The three mages, fearful for their lives, called upon the gods for help. Solinari, Lunitari, and Nuitari heard their cries. They seized the tower in which the mages stood and moved it beyond the circles of the universe, where the gods could teach the three mages the foundations of wizardry in peace. The tower became known as the Lost Citadel.
For one hundred years, the gods trained their disciples in the ways of magic. At last, the three mages returned to Krynn to lead other wild mages out of hiding. They constructed five bastions in remote regions to shelter all mages from the hostile world; these became known as the Towers of High Sorcery. The gods then closed the way to the Lost Citadel, believing the knowledge it harbored was too powerful to fall into the hands of ordinary mages or mortals.
In the centuries since then, the role of magic in the world had changed greatly. Not the least of these changes was that three of the five Towers of High Sorcery had been abandoned or decimated during the Cataclysm. Only one, Wayreth, was inhabitable. The stories of the Lost Citadel had slipped away into the category of legend among mages, much like dragons had to the population of Krynn.
Except to Harz-Takta the Senseless. One thousand years before, he had devised and recorded in his spell-book a means of entering the Lost Citadel. The brilliance of the mind that formulated the process was astounding. According to Harz-Takta, more than a dozen magical portals existed across the face of Krynn for the primary purpose of interplanar travel. Harz-Takta searched for a secondary purpose and claimed to find it. His writings proposed that, during a Night of the Eye, just one of these portals, a different one each time, would gain the caster entry into the Lost Citadel when combined with the appropriate spell.
Even Belize had doubted it would work until he broke through the conceptual barrier of standard magical thought. The process was so nonconventional, even counter-rational, that it required relearning a tremendous amount of what Belize had been taught and what most mages simply took for granted. Harz-Takta posited a completely alternate view of reality, one unrelated to the known senses. Step by step, for almost two years, Belize had tested those hypotheses, and so far, they seemed wholly valid.
Belize had no way of knowing what had happened to Harz-Takta. His writings stopped just prior to his attempt to pass through a portal during the triple eclipse on a Night of the Eye one thousand years before. History had recorded nothing of the outcome. A pessimist, or even a realist, would have assumed that he'd failed.
But Belize had grasped Harz-Takta's brilliance, and now he would follow in that great man's footsteps. He risked everything, but would gain a universe. When Belize entered the Lost Citadel he would have the knowledge of the gods. For two years he had worked with only that goal in mind. To hone his gating skills- the ability to pass from one place to another by way of an extradimensional gate-he secured a spellbook on the subject by the great wizard Fistandantilus.
Next he searched the continents for maps or other clues to the whereabouts of the ancient magical portals referenced by Harz-Takta. Then he'd spent a year reviewing lunar probabilities to determine which of the portals was most likely to open a gate to the Lost Citadel during the next Night of the Eye, which was then a half year away.
That led him, just a month before, to the plinths known as Stonecliff. He'd quickly determined the current owner, a merchant named Berwick, and offered to buy the land to ensure that he could carry out his research there whenever he wished. Unfortunately, the man would not sell to him, having promised the land as part of a dowry to a titled lord to the west. That lout, Cormac DiThon, had proven even more intractable. First, he'd rejected a ridiculously generous offer of money for the land, when it was obvious from the shabby state of his castle that his fortunes were severely diminished. What was worse, the man was a terrible bigot about mages. Though he knew nothing of Belize's intentions, the lord viciously vowed to tear down the plinths, which were reputed to be magical in nature, just to spite all mages. Then he'd thrown Belize out.
The Abyss had no fury like a mage scorned. An answer, and an image, came immediately to mind with a spell cast on the nobleman that revealed what his surface thoughts had been during their encounter. If the land was to be exchanged as part of a marriage, the marriage had to be prevented. It was simple work for Belize to track down the bridegroom and arrange for his death within minutes of Belize's confrontation with the lord. The wedding had been stopped.
Until the brother with illusions of wizardry, the one who'd been deemed unacceptable, was substituted. Belize learned that the wedding was back on, which meant the land would still revert to the impoverished lord. Belize's first thought had been to simply kill the second groom. Then he remembered the stoning he'd witnessed in the village and the young man's sympathy for magic. This obvious conflict between the lord and his younger brother provided Belize with a way to prevent the marriage without further bloodshed. He was. after all, still a mage of Neutrality.
And it had worked; the young man ran away before his wedding like a thief in the night. With the transfer of land stopped, Belize had forgotten entirely about the wretched Ergothian lord and his family. Until the scene in the Hall of Mages. If only he'd remembered the young mage while he still had a chance to claim him as an apprentice, he would have had control over him.
Belize felt himself tensing up again. He had difficulty now determining which part of this foolishness angered him more-that he'd arrived at the Hall of Mages late, or that he'd gone there at all. The latter had caused him to be saddled with an apprentice he neither knew nor wanted. He cursed himself for letting the eager young man's flattery go to his head. Belize had accepted him before he had time to recall why the other young man seemed familiar.
And now, the young mage who could possibly discover his secret was in the hands of his greatest rival, Justarius. What was worse, Belize himself had supplied the rube with the tool to do so. He'd given Guerrand DiThon a portion of his magical mirror, the one he'd created from notes in Harz-Takta's tome, to persuade the young man of his authenticity. Back then, it had seemed an expedient and safe thing to do-he'd been so sure the varlet would die!
I should have killed him-killed the whole family- when I had the chance, instead of simply sending him away! I left too much to chance. Belize squeezed a vial of silica until the thin glass shattered in his hand. Beads of red blood mingled with the grains of beige sand.
The pain in his hand began to throb enough to penetrate his cloud of rage. Spying an untouched, dusty, half-filled bottle of dandelion spirits, he removed the cork, rubbed the lip clean, and took a long swallow to ease the pain. The pale yellow wine had a calming affect and narrowed his mental vision until he could think clearly again. The Master of the Order of Red Mages rinsed the sand from the cut and bound it with a scrap of cloth.