That market occupied a broad plaza festooned with brightly colored awnings, small stalls, and a multitude of handcarts, the latter often shaded by a single broad umbrella. The fabrics in reds and golds, stripes and mosaics, greens like the emerald purity of winter ice in the heart of a glacier, or blue as smooth and vast as the summer sky, reminded Cory of a great field of chaotic blooms. People milled and thronged here, bought and bartered all around these makeshift stalls.

This was far more than a fish market, she saw. A weaponsmith had an array of swords laid out on a table in the afternoon sun, and one huckster was doing a thriving business offering nothing more than a glimpse of a scantily clad female dancer moving languidly in the center of a small ringed arena. Coryn recognized sheep and lambs, cows and calves, goats, poultry, and even a few horses confined in impromptu corrals. Finally she spotted a dilapidated little enclosure where a dozen mules stood, more or less contentedly.

"We have to bargain with him," Donny said distastefully, for the first time displaying a touch of hesitancy.

The "him" was a huge, pot-bellied mule skinner who wore filthy trousers and a leather vest that didn't begin to cover his hairy, sagging gut. When he spotted the pair of potential customers, he favored them with a wide smile, and Cory saw that his mouth was almost entirely devoid of teeth.

"I kin see the lady 'as a keen eye for mule flesh," he said approvingly, swaggering over to greet them. He smelled very strong, like a sour version of the liquid in Umma's special bottle of medicine. "These 'ere are splendid animals. You kin 'ave the lot of 'em for a hundred steel."

Coryn shook her head firmly. If there was one thing she knew, it was how to barter. "I want three-that one, that one, and that one." She picked out the only animals that seemed to be watching them with intelligence, a trio of black mules that continued to regard them with oversized and upraised ears.

"Like I said, you 'as a keen eye," said Bulge-Belly with a nod. "Them's my best three. Cost you seventy five for the set."

"That's ridiculous! You just said the price was a hundred for all twelve of them, and now you want seventy five for three?"

"Like I said, them's the best three."

Donny, off to the side, was shaking his head furiously. Cory drew up her chin, and glared at the man. "Twenty," she offered firmly.

He looked injured, but kept the bargaining going. She, in turn, refused to back down, and felt rather proud of herself when the deal was finally closed for twenty-eight pieces of steel. Another six pieces were required to buy harnesses, but within a few minutes Coryn and Donny were leading the docile animals back through the city.

"What does Mistress Jenna do? I mean, for a job?" Coryn ventured to ask the lad. "Or is she a noble lady, born to her manor?"

Donny looked up and laughed. "You mean you haven't heard of her?"

"No," Cory was forced to admit, embarrassed. "I mean, except from my grandmother."

"Well, she's just the greatest wizard in Palanthas, maybe the whole world!" the boy said proudly. "She is mistress of all the Red Robes!"

"A wizard?" Coryn asked wonderingly. "You mean, she makes spells from the wind, the stones, everything around her?"

Donny looked at her in pity. "Boy, you don't know much, do you? No, you're talking about sorcery. The Lady Jenna hates that. She practices real magic, the kind you learn from books, and get taught by teachers. At least, you can, now that the moons are back. That's what my pop said."

"And she is the leader of all the Red Robes? Are there many of them?"

For the first time, the youth looked unsure. "Well, there used to be. And when the moons came back-there are three of them, you know, 'cuz there's a black one you can't see-"

"I know about the three moons!" Coryn declared. He continued as if she hadn't spoken.

"But since the moons came back, Jen-I mean, the Lady Jenna-has been looking for other wizards. But she hasn't found any." His face brightened, in sudden inspiration. "I bet that's why we got the mules."

"Why?" the girl asked, wondering what mules had to do with wizards.

But Donny had already said too much, and by this time they were making their way up Nobles Hill to Jenna's house.

There she was rather surprised to find that the lady had already laid out three pairs of saddlebags, bulging with provisions. Her men-at-arms started loading them onto the animals as soon as they arrived. Coryn barely had time to run in and get her knapsack, which she lashed to one of the mules, before Jenna was saying good-bye to her servants.

"Rupert, please take charge of my affairs, as usual," she directed the majordomo. "We might be gone for a very long time."

"Of course, my lady. And may I wish you great success on your quest."

Jenna didn't offer any explanation to Coryn, but the girl was resigned to another long adventure on the road. As they started away from the villa, Jenna strolling easily in the lead while Cory led the three mules, the girl looked back at the placid animals and made a practical decision about the only thing where she seemed to have a little control.

She decided to name the mules.

A Master Enslaved

The Master of the Tower had erred. That awareness came very slowly, but it was an undeniable truth.

At first he had welcomed the Awakening, a return to cognizance after so many decades of dormancy. The gods had reached out to him, and he had grown vibrant under their touch, their urging. Quickly, over the course of little more than a single cycle of the black moon, Nuitari, the Master of the Tower had shrugged off the lethargy of the godless years. This eight-day sequence spanned in its passing the fullness of the other two moons, Solinari and Lunitari, so that upon the second rising of Nuitari as a complete, dark circle-the Master could sense this fullness as clearly as could any black-robed wizard-the great structure in the heart of Wayreth Forest began to pulse with a return of long-forgotten vitality.

It happened during the spring of the year, and the Master of the Tower felt fully, vibrantly alive. When all three moons rose into the sky, the power of the gods of magic flowed toward the world, bringing forth that fully cognizant awareness of life.

With awareness there came remembrance, and with those memories, unspeakable pain.

The Master remembered eons of greatness, when these halls had been home to the likes of Fistandantilus, Raistlin the Black, and Par-Salian of the white robe. Power beyond imagination had once coursed through this center of learning and of might. Within this tower the great Portal had glimmered and glowed, tempting wizards over the years with easy transport between the towers of sorcery-all the time serving the sinister purposes of the Queen of Darkness. The Portal had been closed and sealed years ago, and now that queen was dead, and still the Tower stood. It remained aloof from the world, lofty and alone… save for the wizards who dwelled here, and the forest that protected it.

The forest!

The Master's first conscious act in this new age was to seek the comforting presence of that vast woodland, the warm nest that had been its bower since the Age of Dreams. The forest surrounded and protected, barred the unwelcome from entry, and sealed away the petty troubles of mortal lives and lands. That wood was the Tower's cocoon, its bower, its nest.

Yet now, in this new age when the three moons once again ruled the night sky, the Master could not feel this familiar, comforting, surrounding presence. The Master feared that the forest was dead, vanished into the same void that had nearly swallowed the Tower itself. A sense of bleak hopelessness surrounded the Tower, and if not for the strength in the deep-seated foundation stones, the spire might have collapsed in ruin.