The wizard picked up a sheaf of them, weighed it thoughtfully in his hands, added another sheet, then rolled and tied them with a bit of twine. To Bram he said, "Help me bundle these parchments, seven sheets at a time. Be sure to keep them in the proper order."

Bram dropped to his knees and set to work, rolling parchments.

Guerrand looked to his familiar, perched on the roof of the bakery. "You're on, Zag." The gull swooped to his master's side. Guerrand held toward him the first parchment roll, letting the gull grab the twine in his beak. "Fly this up as high as you can go. When you can't possibly get any higher and we just look like tiny dots on the ground, give the roll a toss. Then return as fast as you can for the next one."

Give it a toss? wondered the bird. You think I can throw this all the way to the moon? While I am a hooded, black- backed Ergothian gull, the-

Guerrand squeezed Zag until his breath squeaked out his beak, cutting off the gull's trademark reply. "Of course you can't throw it that far. The scroll will know where to go, and the rest of the trip will take care of itself."

With a stifled, slightly indignant "Kyeow!" Zagarus lifted off. Three pairs of eyes watched his progress as he climbed, circling round and round. The bird was nearly lost from view when a flash of orange light drew two surprised gasps. Flaming runes etched themselves across the sky, flashing until all were complete, then raced away eastward toward the darkening blue, finally disappearing behind the horizon.

Zagarus folded his wings and plummeted like a rock, arriving with a tremendous flapping tumult just moments after the last flaming sigil dissipated. He snatched another bundle without pausing and was off again, spiraling skyward.

Rolling parchments next to Bram, Guerrand explained the process: "The symbols and runes on these parchments are etching themselves on Nuitari. When that's complete, I'll trigger the spell and the moon will become two-dimensional, with its edge turned toward Krynn, like a coin on its side."

Squinting, Guerrand's gaze shifted. "Here comes Zag for the last bundle."

By now, Zagarus did not land so much as he simply slammed into the ground. I… don't know… how much longer I can do this, panted Zagarus, staggering to his feet.

Guerrand held out the bundle. "Just one more, old friend, and then you can rest for a year and eat all the fish you want."

It's a good, thing, too… because I think Nuitari is about to rise. The gull took the bundle in his mouth, stumbled down the street with wings flapping, and took off.

After watching the final batch of sigils head skyward, Bram turned back to Guerrand. "What about the moon's edge? Won't that still provide a tiny bit of light?"

Guerrand had already rolled back his sleeves and closed his eyes in concentration. "Not if the spell works properly. If Nuitari becomes truly two-dimensional, its edge will not exist in this world. If you want to worry about something, worry that the spell won't work at all; that's far more likely.

"I don't know how long I can maintain it," the mage continued, "so I'm going to cast the spell at the last possible moment, just as the sun disappears. I have to prepare now." He pressed his hands to his ears briefly, clueing Bram to stay back quietly.

As the sunlight waned, Guerrand silently repeated the words of the spell over and over with great concentration, until he felt himself no more than a black hol- lowness, like the length of a flute through which the invisible sound passed. He repeated the spell like a mantra the entire length of his mind's body, opening passages to the power and stopping the interference of others. He dared not open his eyes, lest he lose concentration. He would know without seeing if the spell worked. The mage squeezed his eyes shut more tightly, and with every clenched and tingling muscle in his body, he willed the spell to work. He'd done everything he knew how to make it happen.

Guerrand felt the mental presence of Zagarus at his side, telling him that all the scrolls had been dispatched. Guerrand pronounced the words he had been rehearsing.

"lne jutera, Irtc swobokla, jehth Ine laeranma."

A tremendous clap of thunder rattled doors and shook the ground beneath their feet like an earthquake for many moments. Guerrand's eyes flew open in alarm as he stumbled about, crashing into Bram, who was already on his knees.

"What's happening?" cried Bram, struggling to keep Kirah on her straw mattress.

But Guerrand could only shake his head mutely. What had he done with his rearranging of ancient symbols? A bolt of lightning cracked the dusky sky and zagged a path above the buildings of the village, straight to Guerrand. The bolt struck the mage full in the chest in the very instant he realized it would. To his greater surprise, there came only a slight tingling pain.

Guerrand reached up a hand to the wound, but the earth dropped away beneath him, throwing him off balance. Yet he did not tumble down but flew forward, as if all the wind in the world were at the small of his back, arching him like a bow until he thought he might snap. The skin of his face drew back from the incredible speed of his passage, exposing the outline of every tooth and bone in his head. His ears rang, and his head felt stuffed with wool.

Strangest of all, Guerrand seemed to be going somewhere in a great hurry. He was hurtling through a vast expanse of blackness broken only by tiny pinpoints of distant light. One of those points loomed larger than the rest, until its impossibly bright, blinding light was all that was ahead, choking out the blackness, burning Guerrand's eyes.

And then the breakneck ride stopped. Instantly. Guerrand was thrown to his knees, and his head snapped forward painfully. He kept his eyes shut as he crawled to his feet, one hand rubbing his neck. He was afraid to open his eyes, but curiosity won out, and he spared a glance around him.

The mage was in a room defined so only by the four crystal-clear glass walls that separated him from the vastness of blue-black space. Even the floor beneath his feet was transparent, cold glass, the view broken only by winking stars. The feeling was disorienting, as if a surface as thin as a soap bubble were all that kept him from tumbling through the heavens.

Slow-paced footsteps abruptly hammered against the glass. Guerrand's head jerked up, eyes wide. A youngish man stepped into view from the blackness of space. His jet-black hair and long black robe seemed to form from the darkness beyond the glass. Pinpoints of starlight twinkled in his eyes, set slant-wise and sly and entirely ringed with shadows. He radiated a sense of majesty, cool and unreachable. Guerrand would have dropped to his knees in supplication if he weren't already kneeling.

The aristocratic man stepped to the middle of the room, a curious smile playing about his mouth. He bent at the waist, and a chair grew beneath him, rising out of the floor like stretched, heated glass. He casually crossed his legs and raised an arm, and a table grew similarly beneath it. He appraised Guerrand with a serene visage, his eyes alighting with brief interest upon Guerrand's red robe. If not for his venerable aura, the man looked at a distance like any intelligent listener sitting at a table in an inn, with fried root vegetables and a cup of lily wine on the table before him.

"Why are you scribbling on my moon?" he asked coolly.

"Your moon?" Guerrand gasped. With a small jerk of his head, he looked all around the glass walls and noticed the dark, circular shadow that loomed taller than a cliff face. He could almost make out smaller shadows of familiar magical runes scratched upon the darker shape. Guerrand's head snapped back to the man at the table. The red-robed mage grew paler than a mushroom, when, with simple, terrible understanding, he realized he was looking at the god of dark magic himself, Nuitari.