And three minutes later, right as the small dark templar vessel sped through the gate, the pain hit. And this time, Jake blacked out.

Jake came to to discover himself lying on his back on something cool and hard and looking up at a dark, polished ceiling. It was inlaid with a dazzling display of glowing, singing crystals. They were beautiful, but blurry and wavy. He blinked hard, and then suddenly panicked.

Powerful, nonhuman hands grasped him to steady him, and he flailed, staring wildly at the purple-skinned protoss. Who was this person? Where the hell was he? The caverns beneath Aiur, with Savassan— or in the temple where that dead protoss was—

Jacob. Listen to me. Remember.

The voice in his head terrified him for half a second, and then he remembered. Zamara. He was probably in the ancient library Zeratul had spoken of on...Ehlna. The Alys'aril. The protoss sitting over him, keeping vigil while he slept, was Zeratul.

"Are you all right now?" Zeratul asked. Jake nodded shakily. Zeratul released him and sank back on his haunches. Jake closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, and when he opened them again his vision had cleared.

More symptoms, he thought to Zamara. First headaches, then seizures, and now blurred vision and memory loss.

Yes. But we are here now. At the end of our long journey together. "Are you well enough to speak with the alysaar'vah?"

Jake guessed that was the supervisor of the library and nodded again. "Yeah. I'm not going to get any better just sitting here. How long was I out for?"

"We had barely laid you down when you awoke. I explained a little to the alysaar about our situation."

"Yeah, I'm sure he was wondering what you were doing bringing me here." The ice pick in his brain had been removed, leaving behind only dull pain. He got to his feet, taking his time, realizing that his legs felt weak. Yet another symptom. Zeratul watched him closely, ready to aid him if it was needed, letting him keep his dignity if it wasn't.

Damn, Jake liked the protoss.

"Indeed, some information was necessary. But I also felt much needed to be explained by you and Zamara, and she was unreachable while you were unconscious. Krythkal has been here for several centuries," Zeratul continued. "He is now the alysaar'vah, the head of the alysaar. He oversees the work done here and sees to it that the traditions and the level of care are kept."

Jake followed Zeratul out of what he assumed was the sleeping quarters and into a cavernous hall. He stopped dead in his tracks.

He'd thought the crystals in the temple were impressive, but compared to the sight that greeted him in this room, they were a candle next to a sun. Obsidian walls arched far, far above his head, pocked every foot or so by a small alcove that held a crystal. Some were larger than others, some less radiant, some were more beautifully prismed, but to his eye, they were all glorious. They seemed to him to have a slightly different hue than the ones he'd seen on Aiur and in the temple where he'd encountered Zamara. He rubbed the palms of his hands on his eyes and looked again.

"So is it the brain tumors or are these crystals different from others?" he asked Zeratul, his eyes rovingover the countless crystals nestled in their alcoves, each one a unique little star.

"You are quite observant for a non-protoss," came a pleasant mental voice. Jake turned to behold a protoss so old that he made Zeratul look like a capering youngster. So they, too, showed physical signs of aging, though subtler than a human's white hair or wrinkled skin. A slightly brittle fragility to this dark templar's skin and build indicated that he had been around for a long, long time.

His eyes, which also seemed paler to Jake than Zeratul's, crinkled and he hunched in laughter. Jake felt heat rise in his face.

"Yes, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey, I remember the expulsion from our homeworld. I was even older than Raszagal, and I do not anticipate my life to extend overmuch longer. But glad I am to have lived this long, to see our people reunite, to meet a non-protoss who honors our knowledge as we do, and to give my aid to a preserver. You are right about the crystals. There is a rare combination of energies here that alters the crystals on a deep level. There are two such places where the energies converge. One is in the ocean depths, the other is beneath our feet. It is why we chose to stay and create the Alys'aril on this precise location."

He shifted slightly, and Jake could no longer hear his thoughts. Jake assumed he was talking privately with Zamara. Something Zamara said affected the old protoss profoundly—Jake saw his eyes widen and his body stiffen, then settle sadly into the closest thing to a slump he'd ever seen a protoss display. At length, Krythkal nodded.

"Dark times indeed are upon us, that it comes to this," he said. "Zamara, here in the Alys'aril we have ever sought to preserve memories in our own way. That does not mean we do not respect the way our brothers kept their wisdom—through protoss such as you."

"I know this," Zamara said. "I am grateful beyond expression that the dark templar used their skills to such ends. Now information vital to the survival of not just the protoss as a united race, but perhaps many other species as well, can be passed on."

He nodded, but something else concerned him. "You speak of Ulrezaj. Do you know if he was defeated on Aiur or if he survived?"

"I couldn't stay long enough to determine whether or not we'd brought him down," Jake said. "I had to get through the warp gate before it was too late—I'd lingered long enough to miss the boat to Shakuras as it was. But he was definitely being weakened, that much is for sure."

He expected Krythkal to express at least some pleasure in the news, if not exactly delight. Ulrezaj, after all, was originally a dark templar, albeit a misguided one. But even the dark templar feared the power of the dark archons, and the horrors Ulrezaj had perpetrated on the protoss would move all but the hardest heart. So he was surprised when Krythkal seemed genuinely saddened.

"I am glad that his evil was stopped, but I will mourn him," he said.

Jake blinked. "Come again? I know he was one of your people once, but I don't think anyone should weep over the death of something so awful."

"Something? No. A dark archon of such tremendous power and malice—no. That I do not mourn. But I will mourn Ulrezaj."

He regarded Jake steadily. "I will mourn my student."

Jake stared. His student? "Ulrezaj—used to be a Keeper of Wisdom?"

Krythkal nodded. "Many centuries past, he studied these crystals. He was passionate about the cause of our people, as we all were then, with the wound still so very fresh. His was a sharp mind, an eager mind, not content with merely cataloguing memories and transferring them from one crystal to another. He hungered for knowledge, and we foolishly granted it to him."

The dark templar looked, if such a thing were possible, even older as he spoke. "We let him rise in our ranks, for he proved an able student. We took great care to allow him only limited access, for much of whatis recorded in the Wall of Knowledge is forbidden lore. We understand that, and while we preserve it because all knowledge is precious, we do not access it. No one living in the Alys'aril, not even I, knows most of the secrets contained in the Wall."

"Ulrezaj did not confine himself to the areas that he was permitted to explore, did he?" It was a rhetorical question from Zeratul; he, Jake, and Zamara already knew the answer.

Krythkal nodded again. "No, he did not. Secretly, he was rising in the night, and studying the darkest, most forbidden knowledge the dark templar possessed."

"That's how he did it," Jake breathed. " That's how he figured out how to become a dark archon that's greater than just two dark templar joining!"