title: The Mechwarrior: Dark Age #3: Ruins of Power
author: Robert Vardeman
description: <b>Robert E. Vardeman</b> has been writing full-time since 1975. Prior to that, Vardeman mostly wrote fanzine material. He was nominated for a Best Fan Writer Hugo in 1972. He took up writing as a career at the insistence of a Dallas, Texas, newspaper reporter named George W. Proctor, who told him that writing is fun, easy, and profitable. He has a MS degree in engineering.
zlib_text:   
  
  **THE KINGPRIEST**
  
  Bringer of Light, ruler of Istar, his rule becomes ever more oppressive in the
  name of ultimate Good
  
    
  
  **CATHAN**
  
  Twice-Born, once a faithful knight, now he is outcast by the very hand that
  raised him up.
  
    
  
  **ISTAR**
  
  The might empire that spans Ansalon, it stands poised on the brink of
  cataclysm.
  
    
  
  In the final book of his epic trilogy, Chris Pierson recounts the last days of
  the doomed city, as the skies over Istar blaze with
  
    
  
  **SACRED FIRE**
  
  ![](Images/image00192.jpeg)
  
    
  
  **Sacred Fire**
  
    
  
  ![](Images/image00185.jpeg)
  
    
  
  ( Dragonlance - Kingpriest, Book 3 )
  
    
  
   _ **Chris Pierson**_
  
  ![](Images/image00187.jpeg)
  
  **Prologue**
  
  ![](Images/image00191.jpeg)
  
    
  
  ****_**SIXMONTH, 961 I.A.**_ ****
  
    
  
  The wind blasted down the canyon, roaring like a mad dragon and raising great
  curls of dust. Varen turned his head, squeezing his eyes shut just in time to
  avoid it. Some of the other men did not, and their curses echoed from stone to
  stone. Whe