The Fall of Nystol and Other Tales

In ancient times the kings of Whitehawk understood the threat and temptation of magic. They could feel its presence in their courts a serpent slithering at their feet even entering into their beds.. To deal with the problem they formed a pact against all magic. They agreed to send all wizards into exile across the desert wastes the vast expanse of Dry Blood Dunes to remote Nystol of the Sardu Mesa.. But wizards are not dealt with so easily. In time they reared many great towers and became a world power protected by the vast desert and impossible cliffs of the mesa. Just the rumor of their arcane conjurations was powerful enough instilling a paralyzing fear in earthly armies.. For tribute they made every realm send their own precious collections of knowledge and learning every scroll and book to be brought to Nystol for copying. Then somehow at the peak of their influence over the realms but before they could return the books the wizardic orders learned doom. Tattooed barbarians sacked the library-towers burning them to empty shells and executing many magic-users. Axe-wielding masters of the Northern forests a mere horde of illiterate Maharim accomplished the deed. As the flames consumed the magical scrolls so too was lost all secular learning. All written record vanished in a single day and night ushering in an age of darkness across the continent.. How could it have happened? Who opened the lower gate and showed the barbarians where to climb the mesa-steps? Who would place all the civil lands in peril and why? These six tales are haunted by a singular mystery. Exactly what treachery brought about the Fall of Nystol? For a thousand years her magic-users kept all the realms in both fascination and fear. What conspiracy of minds certainly involving some wizards resulted in her destruction?. Or was it as the prophets foretold: a calamity that must be ascribed to the Wrath of God the one who could no longer overlook Nystol and her corrupted practices sorceries and conjurations experiments cruel and forbidden?. Join the ex-slave Hepthe of Setet in his journeys across the realms in search of the answer and hear the stories he tells and why the unraveling of this mystery is crucial to the continuance of civilization itself. The epic cycle from the lands of Whitehawk: THE NOMADS OF SARDU: a monk dares travel across forbidden lands to obtain a forbidden book...2) SAGE OF THE ELDARK: a retired philosopher receives an unexpected guest who is being hunted by the mind of darkness...3) DIALOGUE WITH A STRANGER: two would-be-hell-raiders get themselves involved in a secret society that is far deeper than they can fathom...4) THE TOWER WYRDD: a company of soldiers is led by a mad dwarf into the underworld with the promise of sacking Nystol the wizardic academy of many towers...5) THE LAST DAYS OF THE MAGI: a condemned prisoner recounts how the most powerful academy of magic was compromised and finally betrayed by insane ideologies. 6) THE FALL OF NYSTOL: an eyewitness account of the barbarian sack of Nystol...