Vaananen shook his head. It was too soon.

No matter the powers of this Fordus Firesoul, he and his rebels were not ready. The forces arrayed against them were more than formidable, the road ahead of them perilous and long.

With Fordus away from the kanaji, there was no chance to warn him. Vaananen leaned against the cooling stone wall and stared out over the city. In the distance, the School of the Games blazed with gaudy purple light, and a roar erupted from a crowd accus shy;tomed to gladiatorial slaughter and reckless horse races.

Now was the most dangerous time-for his own mission in the city, and for Fordus's rebellion in the outlands.

For the Sixth Legion had indeed arrived in Istar. Of that much Vaananen was certain.

After his trip to the stables and the other discover shy;ies, Vincus had rushed back to the druid's quarters, scrambled through the window in a net of torn vines and brambles, and gesticulated so wildly that it took Vaananen the goodly part of an hour to calm the young man down.

By now, the druid believed the servant's story, but he accompanied him back to the stables anyway, and the horse's tattooed lip had confirmed the unpleasant truth.

Not even three legions of Solamnic Knights could hope for victory against Istar's garrison of over five thousand veteran soldiers.

He had warned the Prophet accordingly, drawn the glyphs in the rena garden, four symbols bold in the dark sand.

But who would be there to read it?

Vaananen pulled his cloak tightly about his shoul shy;ders. It always seemed to happen during the Shinarion: the last days of summer blended unaccountably into the first of autumn, and sometime, usually in midfestival, one cool, unforeseen night would signal a change in the season.

Vaananen descended the battlements. The sun had drifted behind the delicate white spires and domes of the western city, staining the luminous buildings with an ominous red.

He had one desperate hope. The Kingpriest, for all his skill in ritual and politics, was not known for his perfect choice of generals. Each successive comman shy;der had been worse than the last, culminating in the abysmal Josef Monoculus. To find a good leader had become next to impossible when the Solamnic Order, disgusted with Istar's.policy of oppression, had ceased to support the Kingpriesf s sterner measures.

And a good thing that was, Vaananen concluded, because the Istarian army with a real general at its head would be matchless.

Shivering at the thought, the druid pulled up his hood and entered the great Council Hall of the Temple, where, in his guise as a loyal follower of the Kingpriest, he would join a handful of other chosen clerics in receiving the next, no doubt, in a sorry line

of military leaders.

"The fool of the season" Brother Alban had called the new commander.

None of the priests had met the new man.

Always an occasion for curiosity, the moVnent arrived, and Vaananen was somewhat shocked when, entering the torchlit hall, he saw the clergy crowded around the impressive figure of a black-robed man. The man stood next to the Kingpriest himself.

For the first time in years, perhaps the Kingpriest had chosen wisely. Vaananen could tell by the cut of the man: sturdy and strong, his pale body chiseled, almost translucent, as though an able sculptor had carved him of marble. The black silk tunic he wore was simple and elegant, a striking contrast to the bil shy;lowing, ornate robes of his clerical hosts, and he wore a battered sword at his side-a weapon that had seen years of action, the druid guessed, unlike the ornamental baubles banging around on the belts of the last three generals.

This man was dark-haired, handsome in a femi shy;nine, almost reptilian fashion, and he held the gaze of the Istarian priests impassively, with neither respect nor condescension. He refused the wine offered him by Brother Burgon and remained stand shy;ing when most of the clergy chose to sit, his pale arms crossed over his broad chest.

Beside him, the Kingpriest displayed his gentlest features. He was a lean, balding scholar with bright sky-blue-no, sea-blue-eyes. If the power of Istar had not resided in the little man, he might have been mistaken for the new general's obsessively proper secretary.

The two dignitaries spoke quietly to one another, as the priests and monks leaned into the conversation.

The Kingpriest looked tired, harried; what remained of his auburn hair had thinned even more since Vaananen had seen him last, and for a moment the druid wondered if the monarch was ill.

But when the blue eyes turned toward him, they were bright and hectic.

And afraid.

How odd.

Vaananen edged closer through the crowd, hear shy;ing the stranger's name bandied excitedly by the murmuring clerics.

Tadec? Tanik? The whispering was insistent, dis shy;tracting, the words blending together so that the druid could not make out the name in question. But whoever the man was, Tadec or Tanik, he continued to charm his hosts: a low, melodious comment from the man drew animated laughter and, with an icy smile, he scanned the room, his eyes locking at once with Vaananen's.

The eyes of the new general were amber, depth-less, and slitted. He stared at the druid, and the black core of his gaze opened malignly. Looking into the heart of those eyes, Vaananen saw an image of a dark void, a huge winged shape spiraling in the windless nothingness, its webbed, extended wings flexing and shimmering.

/ know you, a dark voice seemed to say, rising from nowhere but registering inside the shaking druid's head.

Then, as suddenly as it struck, the feeling sub shy;sided. Vaananen blinked, the general turned away, and the image vanished. But in that moment's com shy;munion Vaananen knew both what the man called himself, and who he really was.

"Takhisis," Vaananen whispered to himself, as the clergy around him slipped past on their way to meet

and admire and adore this new, mysterious leader. "Takhisis commands the armies of Istar. Now I know. "And now she knows, too."

* * * * *

The corridors of the tower were drafty and dank as the druid made his way back to his quarters. The hour was still early, his priestly brothers either at prayers or the festival … or adoring the general, breathless and rapt like vermin mesmerized before a sewer snake.

There was still time to warn the rebels, if Fordus returned to the kanaji.

Vaananen knew that the days to come would be dangerous for all of them. Now he would have to lock his doors, board his windows against the sud shy;denly hostile night. The goddess had recognized him-he was almost sure of it. And since that was true, his life was forfeit.

A faint light wavered and approached from a side corridor. Not even an hour, and. it has already begun, Vaananen thought, wrestling down a rising fear. He stepped into a dark threshold, pressed himself against the polished wood of the door . . . and watched as a sleepy acolyte passed, bearing a torch to the last prayers of the night.

Vaananen moved out from the darkness, laughed softly and sadly. It would not do. He would not hide and hole away in the temple, waiting for Takhisis to strike. He would not lie trembling in bed, awaiting a footfall outside his locked doors.

And yet, despite his brave thoughts, Vaananen sighed in relief when his own door was behind him, when it was locked and double-locked against the night and his own fearful imaginings. At once the druid moved to the rena garden, to see if the four glyphs he had drawn that morning lay untouched in the shadowy sand.

Yes, they were still there. Fordus had not received them.

Vaananen sat on the black stone. It was time for a fifth symbol. The druids had taught him that a pow shy;erful magic lay in the crafting of this extraordinary glyph-a magic to be used only when circumstances were dire. The message of the fifth symbol was always loud: sometimes a warning of famine or sud shy;den flood, often, during the Age of Dreams, a token that a dragon approached. It was distinct from the other glyphs, for it beckoned with an impulse as strong as hunger or weariness.