And in the far sky, somewhere over Istar on the northern horizon, a star winked out and the long line of dune and mountain darkened ever so slightly.

Good. Her powers were growing. She could again subvert the deep heavens with an old spell or a quiet incantation. Somewhere in the far void of space, as dark and lifeless as her prison in the abyss, a black star cooled and died, collapsing on itself, and ten plan shy;ets-ten worlds-felt the first glazing of a final ice.

Who knew what civilizations now lay chilled and silent, abandoned by warmth and light and life?

Indeed, who cared? What was important was that she could do it-could leave the world desolate with a breath, a thought. Oh, her powers were mighty, and though Krynn was held against her, safe for now in the shelter of a bright wing, she would gov shy;ern it soon. She knew it.

It was a matter of months-of a few years at the most-and this was the place to begin.

Takhisis knew how the salt flats had received their name. Profane ground, where healing failed and revelation faded.

No wonder Mishakal wept.

But the goddess who now passed through the lat shy;ticework of crystal thought little of healing, less of revelation. On her mind were the rebel leaders, the close-knit triad of bard, elf, and …

She had no word for Fordus. Not yet. She knew him only through repute and legend, through his victories and through the song of his bard.

The bard was easy. Larken did not know her own power-the hidden magic of the lyre she resented and discarded, the awesome potential of her voice if she could free it of her own fear and anger.

Takhisis smiled. Fear and anger were her favorite lieutenants.

Fear and anger followed the elf as well.

Neither of them knew themselves, much less their commander.

The sand stirred, marking the wake of the goddess, a sinuous, twisting path like the trail left by a snake.

The next time she would come to them as Tanila, and the elf would be probed and sounded. He was Lucanesti, friend to the opals.

And oh, the opals would be important soon.

But first, there was small business to attend to at the edge of the grasslands.

The grasslands rose out of sleep to embrace him, the long grain swaying in the windless fields.

Fordus knew he was dreaming because what he saw did not match what he felt.

He did not like unexpected dreams. But so be it.

Would the battle come, or the light? One or the other always appeared in his dreams, and he learned from them both, from what the battle showed him or the light told him to say.

A purple rise, dotted with fir trees and blasted vallenwoods, rushed to meet him. Above them, a dozen birds wheeled slowly.

Hawks? Was Larken's hawk Lucas among them? He called to the birds in his mind; they approached, descended.

Not hawks. Scavengers.

Then it is a battle dream, he thought. I shall feel my dreaming in the morning run, in new soreness and stretching. But I shall win this battle as I win them all. Larken will finally sing of how I defeated Istar in desert, in grasslands …

Even in dreams.

He had no time to savor the prospects. Suddenly the rise fell away, as though the earth itself had col shy;lapsed beneath him. Fordus leapt over a spinning, white-hot void and landed stiffly and unsteadily at the crumbling edge of a bluff. A solitary Istarian

warrior instantly appeared before him-a golden man, hooded and helmed, his shield adorned with seven alabaster spires, his broad shoulders draped with a black tunic.

Well, then, Fordus thought. He reached for the axe at his belt.

It was not there.

For a moment, fear surged through him, dream shy;like and obscure, then he brushed it aside with a laugh.

After all, it is a dream. What is the worst that can happen?

Across the arid, level ground, in the wail of a hot wind, the warrior beckoned slowly, trumpeting a challenge in an inhuman tongue. His seven-spired shield glittered ever more brightly until the dream was swallowed by its light. Then shadow returned, and the man stood closer, alone and unarmed, as though he had cast aside his weaponry out of con shy;tempt. Now he assumed a wrestler's stance: a low, feline crouch, fingers spread like claws.

With long strides, moving so slowly it seemed that he waded through waist-high sand, Fordus closed with the warrior.

They collided to the sound of distant thunder. The arms of the enemy were cold and metallic, hard and heavy as bronze. The Istarian warrior spun about with a roar, hurling Fordus over his head. Whooping in delight, Fordus released his grip at the height of the violent arc, and somersaulting through the air, landed lightly on the sun-scorched ledge some dis shy;tance away. Behind him, rocks and dust toppled into a bottomless crevasse.

It is my dream. I can master it.

The warrior now bristled with six waving arms like an angry burnished insect, like a living statue of some barbarian harvest god. The sunlight danced like flame on his helmet.

It is my dream …

Fordus hurtled toward the warrior, who cried out and braced himself for the impact.

This collision was totally silent, as though all sound had fled at the force of the impact. The golden warrior rocked on his heels but kept his balance, lift shy;ing the struggling Fordus off the ground, four of the arms drawing him closer . ..

Fordus heard the hissing, smelled the fetid breath of his adversary. Fascinated, distracted, he gazed into the warrior's eyes.

Lidless and lifeless. Reptilian, the vertical slits in the heart of the eyes opening like a parted curtain, to reveal a dark nothingness, a deep and abiding void …

Fordus shook his head, wrestled the enemy's mul shy;tiple grasp, his own sudden drowsiness and lack of resistance, the growing trust that it Would not be so bad, this defeat, that it would all go for the better if he gave up the struggling … if he gave in … and looked into the curtained eyes that opened to per shy;petual blackness.

Fordus bolted upright, stifling a cry. His head rang with pain, and his skin felt raw and tender. His arms ached, the muscles cramping like they'd been gripped in the jaws of some monstrous, relentless creature.

But he was safe atop the Red Plateau. Not twenty yards away, the young sentry still snored at his post. Fordus leapt to his feet, intent on throttling the lad, but his legs shook with the dream's exertion, and a cold sweat rushed over him like a desert downpour.

Leave the lad alone. No sentry could protect him from his dreams.

Angrily, he looked up into the spacious desert sky, where the starry horns of Kiri-Jolith menaced the Dark Queen's constellation.

"Where were you in all of this, old bison? Old grandfather?" Fordus asked sullenly. He stood up slowly. The heavy gold tore at his neck felt tight. With a last look at the sleeping sentry, Fordus began to run.

Since his early childhood, running had carried him away from deceptions, from confinement and com shy;plexities. When he sprinted over desert or plain, when the wind took him up and carried him over dune and moon-dappled rise, when in the power of his stride he seemed to become the wind-only then could Fordus think clearly. He could cleanse his mind of the mys shy;tery of glyph and sand, of the prophecies that passed through him. When he ran, his blood pounding in his ears, he was purely, completely free.

Tonight Fordus outran the wind itself. Suddenly, with a dreamlike swiftness, he found himself cross shy;ing the dunes. The Red Plateau appeared on the far horizon, and from the rebel camp arose a faint array of lights.

He crowed with delight and ran even harder toward the widest expanse of the desert. The red moonlight bathed the landscape ahead, and soon he passed altogether from sight of the plateau, to a point in the desert where the hard red ground stretched in all directions, uninterrupted to the edge of the horizon.