How, thought Dalamar, how would it be if I could take the Tests…?

He looked around at his new quarters. The room allowed him in the Temple was no larger man that in Lord Ralan's house, but it was bright, having two windows, one facing east into the garden, the other facing north. As he settled for sleep, the scents of the garden drifting in through the windows, it seemed to him that no matter how things turned out, whether he learned more of white magic or sipped his dark secrets, he'd found better work than he'd had in a while.

Through the east window the light of the two moons shone, the red mingling with the silver. The lights of the Tower of the Stars graced the darkness, the tower itself glittering with gems caressed by that moonlight. Dalamar closed his eyes, sinking into darkness, seeking sleep as chanting from the Temple made a heartbeat for the night.

From the might of the Dragon Queen, protect us, O E'li!

From her claws and rage, from her fury, defend us!

From the sway of the Dragon Queen, protect us, O E'li!

From her fire and sword, from her tenor, defend us!

When at last he fell asleep, Dalamar did not dream of magic or the threat from the north or any other thing. His sleep was long and deep, but once he woke, thirsty in the night, and poured water from the green pitcher beside his bed. He had a thought in his mind, waking, and that was of the map he had seen on Lord Tellin's worktable, that one in which the Silvanesti Forest sat as though it were the center of the world.

But we are not, he thought, setting aside the cup and slipping again beneath the red woolen blanket. The blasphemy didn't frighten him, and if he dreamed afterward, those dreams did not disturb his sleep.

A scream tore the silence, ripping the velvet night in the Tower of the Stars. In the bedchamber of the king, the scream sounded again, and this time it was made of words.

"You must not leave me!"

Footsteps ran in the corridor, whispering on marble floors. Voices called one to another. Alhana Starbreeze found her father's steward running out the door of his own chamber.

"What is it?" she cried. "Lelan, my father-"

The steward hushed her, but the pallor of his plump cheeks gave lie to the calmness he pretended to have. "A nightmare, I'm sure, Princess. Your father has had a nightmare. No more than-"

Moaning, the Speaker of the Stars cried, "Don't leave-!"

Alhana ran into his suite, through the antechamber, and into her father's bedroom. Her pale night robes and silent footfalls gave her the seeming of a ghost. The king sat in his bed of silk sheets, clutching satin covers. His eyes starting in his head, he stared at her, open-mouthed.

"Father!" She flew to his bedside and took his cold hands in hers. "Father, I'm here. It's Alhana." He did not seem to know her. She cast a swift glance at Lelan and saw the steward had already poured a glass of water. "Take this, Father, drink."

With trembling hands, the Speaker of the Stars took the glass. He drank, the water dribbling. Alhana wiped his chin dry, tenderly as a mother might. "Lelan," she whispered, "light candles, then leave us."

Light sprang up as Lelan kindled one candle after another, fat white pillars and slender green tapers, all the candles in the Speaker's bedchamber to drive out the darkness of night. The faint scent of honey drifted on the air as the beeswax warmed. When he'd done that, Lelan hung at the threshold, wanting to stay. The sharp glance Alhana gave him decided the moment. He turned and ran down the corridor, his footfalls like whispers and rumors of fear. The steward gone, Alhana took her father's hands again, pressing them warmly. It seemed he knew her now.

"Alhana," he whispered, "dearest child."

"A nightmare," she said. "Father, you had a dream. Look, you are here in your own chamber."

He looked around, but only because he followed her gesture, not because he believed he was anywhere outside of nightmare. Thick woolen rugs lay scattered on the cool marble floor, their bright colors muted by night, blue and green and dawn's pink all changed to gray. Upon deep cushioned chairs were brocaded pillows. Tapestries hung on the pale marble walls, and one long mirror bordered in gold graced the wall opposite his bed. A little writing desk stood below an east-facing window, a place for the king to sit and look out at the Garden of Astarin as he tended his correspondence. In the far corner of the room, a niche made by the joining of marble walls, his personal altar stood, whitest marble upon which sat a golden image of Quenesti-Pah and the wing-spread platinum image of the Dragon's Lord, E'li, whom some in the outside named Paladine. None of these familiar trappings stilled Lorac's restless eye.

Alhana chaffed his hands, and softly she said, "Tell me, Father. Tell me what you dreamed." For she believed that to expose the nightmare to title light of the waking world would kill its power.

Shivering, he sighed. "Oh, gods, it was… I went wandering down all the roads of place and time. I walked in the world where the dogs of war are running, and I heard-" He groaned, hunching over. "The voice said, 'You must not leave me! I will perish!' "

"Who spoke? Father, who spoke?"

He looked at her, his eyes clearing. She thought he would answer, but he did not. "In my dream I walked through Nordmaar and Balifor and Goodlund, out to the Blood Sea of Istar. And… and when I came there, the dream changed. Right under me, all around me. There was no gaping wound in the world. Alhana, I saw the city itself, Istar!"

Storied Istar, in all its glory of gold and delight, as she had been more than three hundred years ago when he'd come there, a young elf seeking the Tower of High Sorcery that he might present himself and take the Tests of Magic. The buildings soared high, painted in jeweled tones, gleaming in sunlight, sighing in moonlight. In his dream his soul had sailed upon the chants wafting out from every temple, the voices of elves so beautiful that the Kingpriest himself wept to hear them, his heart so full that words could not express his joy. These were the chants of eternal peace, songs lifted to E'li, whom they named Paladine in Istar, to Quenesti-Pah, to Majere the Master of the Mind, to Kiri-Jolith whose sword wields only justice. In Istar, the Fisher King, Habbakuk, was revered, and Astarin the Bard, whose name means Song of Life.

"It is," Lorac said to his daughter, "as though I am telling you a dream, and yet telling you a thing that happened in waking life. For it did. It did happen that way when I went to Istar, there to take my Tests."

Then he grew still, his eyes suddenly shuttered. His lips moved to shape two words: Save me! It seemed to Alhana that those two words caused the light of the candles to dim and the air in the chamber to grow suddenly cold.

In a low voice, Lorac told how in the sky above Istar the light changed from the lovely golden of sunset to a shivering green. Dreaming, he'd looked around himself, fear quivering in the far and secret chamber of his heart. From where the green light? He followed the light until the Tower of High Sorcery rose up before him. Out from the Tower, like beams lancing out from a lighthouse on a storm-swept night, the light shone. From there, as well, came the voice. Save me!

In his dream, Lorac walked past gates that swung open at his word. The guardians of the Tower, creatures of magic set to ward by mages most powerful, stepped back before him. Mages came to greet him, and they led him inside where an old man, a mage whose name no one knew, told him he was expected. The world will be lost! The cry echoed throughout the Tower, down all the corridors, in all the chambers, high and low, as Lorac followed the old man. Yet, though the cry echoed, no one in this dream but Lorac seemed to hear it or feel the urgency growing in its tone. Led by the nameless mage, he wended the maze of corridors, passing through one chamber after another, and it seemed to him that the Tower went on forever, wide as the sky and broad as the world itself. At last, they stopped in a small chamber, one no larger than could fit two grown men standing abreast.