"Hey, Willi!" pleaded the other dwarf, a Daergar. His milky white skin was slick with perspiration. "Take it easy!"
"I am not Mad Willi," he repeated, a moment before the other turnkey started to die-much more slowly than his fellow, as the newly freed prisoner cast a spell of strangulation, a noose that tightened gradually over the thrashing victim's throat.
"I am Willim the Black," he declared, feeling the sensation again: the song of the black moon coursing through his veins. Nuitari had returned, and the black moon's faithful servant had awakened to him in his cell. "I have business in the forest." He was speaking to a pair of corpses, now, but that didn't matter.
"Let all the dwarves of Theibardin know-when I am finished with that, I shall return, and they will pay."
The dungeon door exploded outward, the result of an exultant lightning bolt. Willim the Black strode through the streets of the dwarven city, toward the surface of Krynn, and toward Wayreth Forest beyond.
"Rasilyss-get back in bed! Where are you?"
The old man's voice was trembling, in a mixture of age and concern. He held a small lantern up, yellow beams of light playing around the yard behind the small cottage. It didn't take him long to find his wife near the chicken coop, her skinny calves visible below the hem of her tattered nightgown.
"Come, dear," he said gently, hobbling forward on his own age-weary legs. " 'Twon't be dawn fer hours, yet. You need yer sleep, ya know."
"It is the Night of the Eye," said the old woman, a remark that drew her husband up sharply.
"What did you say?" he demanded.
"Look," said Rasilyss, pointing toward the western sky.
"Eh? You know I can't see beans on my plate without my specs!" the old man snapped. But, in truth, he didn't need his eyeglasses to see the two moons, red and white and both full, slowly sinking from the zenith. "Yer imagining things again. Now, come on, woman! You need yer rest."
"I have been resting for too many years," said his wife, in a voice that the man hardly recognized. Her voice was calm and reasoned, with an underlying hint of elation that brought a pang to his heart. There was no trace of confusion there, no sign of the age-malady that, as often as not, made her unable to recognize him, even unable to remember her own name.
"It's the magic, is it?" he asked in a tone of resignation. "Has it come back to you?"
"Yes, Hanc, my beloved. Yes, it has," she said tenderly. "I have felt the summons of Lunitari."
"So…" His heart was breaking. "So… you'll be leaving, now."
She came to him in strong strides that belied her frail appearance, her stooped posture. His wife reached up to caress his stubbly cheek, with a hand that was steadier than it had been in many decades.
"You took good care of me, all these years," Rasilyss said. "And I'd love you for that, even if you hadn't stolen my heart when I was a young girl. If I can come back when I am finished, I will. But, you are right, I have to go."
"I understand," he said, shuffling behind her as she went into the house and pulled the red robe out of the trunk where it had been stored for so many years. She dusted it off while he found her old walking shoes, the ones she hadn't worn since her illness had confined her to the house six winters ago. "I hope your goddess watches over you," he said quietly.
"She will," said Rasilyss. "And I think she will watch over you, as well."
Hanc made no reply as she walked down the lane and turned onto the King's Road, the highway running to the west. He waited until she was out of hearing, and then he began to weep.
"Are you awake. Have you seen it?" Adramis asked, speaking so quietly that-even if there had been others present-his words would have been inaudible to all, except Aenell. His twin sat up straight, her eyes wide, and she nodded solemnly.
"Yes. I can picture it in my mind," she replied in the same almost telepathic whisper. "A wondrous thing!"
"You have to come outside to see it for real-it's beautiful. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen!"
He took her by the hand, leading her from the tent she shared with several dozen other elf women. The two elves made their way through the sprawling camp, past the low fires and the multitude of slumbering refugees, many of whom were sheltered only by the blankets wrapped around their slim, shivering bodies. The two siblings avoided looking upward, in common agreement, until they were past the last of the fires and the full vastness of the night yawned before them.
Then they stopped and craned their necks, turning their wondering eyes to the vault of the sky. The three moons beamed down at them in the full zenith of the Night of the Eye. Solinari to the left, Lunitari to the right… and between-keenly sensed by the twin elves even though they could not see it-the shadow of Nuitari in the middle.
The moons seemed to be dancing up there, pulsing and shimmering in a strangely compelling pattern. There was no sound in the night, but in the hearts of the two elves-both of whom had been apprentice wizards more than forty years earlier-the rhythm of the night rang out as a hypnotic song.
"Sister, we must go," said Adramis.
"I know," Aenell replied. "I have what I need, right here."
He looked at her and saw that her thin cotton sleeping gown now gleamed with the brightness of Solinari. It had become a full robe, warmly enfolding the elf woman's slender body. When Adramis looked down, he saw that he, too, was wearing the garb of their order; his simple sleeping tunic had likewise been transformed.
"I had thought never to feel this white cloth against my skin again," he said, reverently. "It is a blessing."
"A blessing, yes. But I know that it does not come without cost. We are needed, my brother-let us depart."
The two elves, still hand in hand, walked past the sprawling camp, the makeshift city forming a crude shelter for thousands of their Qualinesti cousins, all driven from their homeland, now come here in poverty and ruin to the Plains of Dust. As Adramis and Aenell passed, many of those elves came forth from the tents and huts and lean-tos, and gathered at the edge of the camp, watching in silence as the twins walked past. Solinari shone bright upon them, and their white robes gleamed like a flare, the reflection casting shadows through the camp.
Before them loomed mountains, the massive barrier of the High Kharolis. They would cross those mountains, for their destination was the forest beyond.
The old woodcutter emerged from the thicket, his bow and arrows slung easily across his shoulders as he entered the yard around his little hut. The three dogs came out to greet him, tails wagging, ears flapping, all of them barking delightedly. They frolicked around him as he pushed open the unlocked front door. The man raised a hand and pointed, and the wick of his oil lamp immediately flickered into life.
What a simple pleasure that spell was, and the next one was, too-he snapped his fingers and a fire blazed in the stove, heating the water for his tea as he sat down in his solitary chair, idly scratching the head of his favorite hound as he pondered. It was the Night of the Eye, he knew, the first since the gods had returned to Krynn.
He had been using his magic, quietly, privately, here in the woods ever since the gods returned, but in those months he had never viewed the renewal of magic as having any significant impact on the remaining course of his life.
It had been such a fleeting joy, for, as a teenager, he had first learned the ways of magic; then the gods had vanished from the world-taking their powers with them-just as he was beginning to master the ways of his new craft. The pain of that loss had been so great, that he might easily have perished; certainly he knew of other young wizards who had died chiefly from grief or madness. At length he had grown used to a life barren of that joy. Still, his early dalliance with magic explained why he had never taken a wife. No woman, no relationship with anyone could replace that thrill.