"And the nameless mage, he said that I must not touch or take anything. I must leave all as I saw it."

"And did you?" Alhana asked, her face white in the candle's light.

"I told him-I told him I would do as he wished. And the man vanished. When I looked back into the room…"

When he looked back into the room, he saw that a table had appeared, a simple trestle of scarred wood. Upon it sat an ivory stand, like two hands cupped, which held a clear glass ball shining in the unlit gloom. Save me, the globe whispered. Disaster is near and you must not leave me here in Istar. If you do, I will perish and the world will be lost! He reached, and he lifted the globe. It warmed in his hands, and he looked around again, like a thief in the night. Take nothing, the old mage had said, touch nothing. Await me here. But the orb, nestling in his hands, cried out in piteous tones, cried out for the sake, not of itself, but of the world it longed to save. Swiftly, silently, the young mage, who was the old man who dreamed, whispered the words of a spell. The crystal globe became as nothing, not only invisible but without substance. That nothing he put inside his robe, and he walked out of the little chamber, out of the towers, and out of the city that soon would fall and, in falling, change the face of the world.

"Child," said Lorac Caladon, he who was a king, the Speaker of the Stars, "my child, I am ashamed to confess it. I left the city a thief."

Silence settled upon the room. In the corridor beyond Lorac's door, torches whispered to themselves in their brackets on the walls, the hushed voice of tamed fire. Somewhere down that corridor Lelan waited, the chamberlain who obeyed his princess but surely did not sleep for fear his master would call him and not be heard.

"Father," said Alhana, leaning close to kiss his cheek. She took his hand again and pressed it to her own cheek. "You are no thief. You simply had a nightmare, and one cannot be blamed for what deed he does in dream. Now, I beg you, please settle yourself and try to sleep again."

Unspoken between them was the knowledge that the day to come would bring another round of council meetings, and Lord Garan of House Protector would come to give what news his Windriders brought from the borders. Lately his news had been good, or not bad. Phair Caron held her position, brooding in the foothills of the Khalkist Mountains, but no one expected that to be the case for long. Garan would plead again to make an offensive strike, to fall upon the Highlord and take her by surprise. The Speaker and the Head of House Protector did not agree. Lorac demanded patience until more troops could be moved to the borderlands. Garan said patience would be the death of them. "She is building up her own forces, my lord king. I know it! Let me strike now!" This time, perhaps, he would plead his case with sufficient vigor to convince Lorac that what elven troops now stood at the border would be enough to make such a strike effective.

Lorac looked up. The king seemed far older in the eyes of his daughter than he had only this morning. "Child, it was a dream, but… it was a dream of truth."

The night fell into utter silence. Alhana did not hear cricket-song, the nightingales in the Garden of Astarin had no voice. "Father, what do you mean? What are you saying? That you, of all people, did steal-?"

"I did not steal it," he said, his face changed, growing oddly cold and still. "I did not steal the globe. I rescued it."

With more energy than Alhana imagined he had, Lorac left his bed. He put on his robe of blue silk, his slippers of soft green leather, and took his daughter by the hand. An urgency was on him now. His fingers grasped hers with enough strength to make her wince.

"Father, what-?" He pulled her toward the door and the corridor beyond. "Where-?"

Once outside his chambers he took her to the railing, the marble ward against the far drop below. Behind them torches flared in silver wall brackets. Somewhere a woman's voice whispered, and a man's murmured in reply. Nearby were the libraries, and a light shone out from under a heavy oaken door-scribes working late.

"Look," the Speaker said, pointing down into the well beyond the railing, down into the audience chamber. His throne stood there, mahogany and emerald, and the Words of Silvanos inlaid with silver. As lives the land, so live the Elves. Beside the throne stood a rose glass table. "Do you see those ivory hands, there on the table?"

She did. The sculpture hadn't been there even this morning.

"I had it commissioned in the summer. I thought the time might come…" He stopped, then said, "The hands are empty now." Lorac's voice echoed into the well, the echoes like wings rustling round the throne and the ivory sculpture. "But come, come with me."

He pulled her along. She followed, thinking they would take the spiraling staircase down into the audience hall. They did not. He took her far down the corridor past closed doors and curtained alcoves to a smaller, darker staircase. They entered a narrow doorway, and she had to duck her head to pass through.

The air in that lightless place smelled faintly damp. Lorac whispered, "Shirak!" and a globe of golden light appeared above his head, moving as he did and lighting the way down narrow stone steps through a passage Alhana had known about but never taken. This way lay a dungeon, not one for keeping prisoners-those were dealt with in other towers.

Cold seeped through the soles of her soft slippers as she ran after her father. Down and around, spiraling into darkness with only that one golden light bobbing above, at last, she saw green light pulsing in the distance below-light like the kind you see when sun shines through aspen leaves in spring. When they reached the floor at last, Lorac led her to the far corner of the dungeon, a place where-had it been meant to hold prisoner-bars would have been erected, chains installed. Upon a small table, not one so lovely as that beside Lorac's throne, sat a crystal globe. It seemed no larger than a child's marble, and yet Alhana knew instinctively that this was not the case. It felt larger, no matter what sight told her. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see it. In the utter darkness, an image sprang: The strange sculpture of empty hands beside her father's throne filled at last, filled with this orb that seemed small yet felt large.

"Father, what is it?"

He turned to her, smiling. "It is a Dragon Orb, Alhana."

She frowned, stepping closer, then away. Power pulsed in the globe, throbbing like a heart in the night. The skin on the back of her neck prickled. "This is what you took?"

"Rescued," said the king quickly. "I rescued it. It cried out to me, and I rescued it. This orb has the power to command dragons. It was one of five, crafted by wizards in a far distant time. Two we know are lost. This third is here. The others…?" He shrugged. "I don't know where they are, or if they still exist. But I do know this, for I have studied what small lore is left of them-a mage with the strength of will to control the magic of an orb will be able to control dragons."

A damp breeze drifted through the dungeon, touching Alhana's cheek with cold fingers. "And the mage who tried but could not control the orb? What would happen to him, Father?"

Lorac turned to her, his pale face shining, his eyes alight. Ignoring her question, he said, "How would it be, my Alhana, if suddenly Phair Caron found her dragons answering to my will? How-?" He cocked his head, his eyes gone soft and unfocused, as they had been when first he woke from his nightmare. "Listen. Do you hear it? The world will be lost…"

Alhana heard nothing, but she did not say so. Softly, she touched her father's arm, the silk sleeve of his robe cold and damp under her fingertips. "Father, come away. Come away. You frighten me!"