The three pillars of smoke coiled together, rushing upward as if striving for the moons themselves. A hurricane gale now lashed at the wizards, but they remained in place, fixed like statues. The column of vapors suddenly whirled apart, high overhead. The smoke of each color diffused into tendrils, dozens or more of each of the three colors blasting across the sky with meteoric speed, trailing plumes of red, black, or white, flying to the far corners of Ansalon.

Awakenings

The dwarfs eyelids snapped open. He could feel the chains on his wrists, recognized the pangs of malnutrition in his belly, and knew each scar the lash had scored into his back. These were echoes of suffering, insignificant details from a wasted, vanished time in his life. His empty sockets-his eyes had been torn out by the torturer's tongs twenty years ago-gaped vacantly, but a word of magic brought him a new eye, floating beside him, studying the surroundings, noting every detail of the filthy, wretched dungeon.

Now, tonight, for the first time in more than forty years, he remembered where he was-more important, who he was. That identity was a picture in clear, sharp focus, a stark contrast to the confused and tortured ramblings that had teased and tormented him for so many sunless years. That interval was over, banished into the past with the rest of his suffering.

Another simple spell snapped the manacles; the shattered metal brackets fell to the floor with a clang. He strode to the door of the cell, ready for more magic, yet the ancient door yielded to a simple push-it had not even been locked! He sneered at this proof that his captors had grown complacent. They would pay for their folly.

His arcane eye guided him down the dungeon hall and around the corner to the chamber where the two turnkeys gambled and were sharing a bottle of dwarf spirits. The magic of the spell showed him the room a split second before he came into view. One of the turnkeys, a grizzled Theiwar dwarf with a wildly bristling beard, looked up in surprise.

"Hey!" he barked. "Mad Willi's loose-did you forget to lock his chains?"

"Me?" snapped his counterpart. "I ain't been down there fer days!"

"Well, lock him up-I'll watch the cards."

"Like the Abyss, you will! Let the blind old fart find his own way back!"

"I am not Mad Willi," the former prisoner said calmly. Both dwarves gaped at him-they had been on the job for decades, and had never heard a rational statement out of the old wretch. The Theiwar reacted first, lunging for a short sword hanging from the wall. He died before he touched the hilt, his heart stopped by a terrible word of power.

"Hey, Willi!" pleaded the other dwarf, a Daergar. His milky white skin was slick with perspiration. "Take it easy!"

"I am not Mad Willi," he repeated, a moment before the other turnkey started to die-much more slowly than his fellow, as the newly freed prisoner cast a spell of strangulation, a noose that tightened gradually over the thrashing victim's throat.

"I am Willim the Black," he declared, feeling the sensation again: the song of the black moon coursing through his veins. Nuitari had returned, and the black moon's faithful servant had awakened to him in his cell. "I have business in the forest." He was speaking to a pair of corpses, now, but that didn't matter.

"Let all the dwarves of Theibardin know-when I am finished with that, I shall return, and they will pay."

The dungeon door exploded outward, the result of an exultant lightning bolt. Willim the Black strode through the streets of the dwarven city, toward the surface of Krynn, and toward Wayreth Forest beyond.

"Rasilyss-get back in bed! Where are you?"

The old man's voice was trembling, in a mixture of age and concern. He held a small lantern up, yellow beams of light playing around the yard behind the small cottage. It didn't take him long to find his wife near the chicken coop, her skinny calves visible below the hem of her tattered nightgown.

"Come, dear," he said gently, hobbling forward on his own age-weary legs. " 'Twon't be dawn fer hours, yet. You need yer sleep, ya know."

"It is the Night of the Eye," said the old woman, a remark that drew her husband up sharply.

"What did you say?" he demanded.

"Look," said Rasilyss, pointing toward the western sky.

"Eh? You know I can't see beans on my plate without my specs!" the old man snapped. But, in truth, he didn't need his eyeglasses to see the two moons, red and white and both full, slowly sinking from the zenith. "Yer imagining things again. Now, come on, woman! You need yer rest."

"I have been resting for too many years," said his wife, in a voice that the man hardly recognized. Her voice was calm and reasoned, with an underlying hint of elation that brought a pang to his heart. There was no trace of confusion there, no sign of the age-malady that, as often as not, made her unable to recognize him, even unable to remember her own name.

"It's the magic, is it?" he asked in a tone of resignation. "Has it come back to you?"

"Yes, Hanc, my beloved. Yes, it has," she said tenderly. "I have felt the summons of Lunitari."

"So…" His heart was breaking. "So… you'll be leaving, now."

She came to him in strong strides that belied her frail appearance, her stooped posture. His wife reached up to caress his stubbly cheek, with a hand that was steadier than it had been in many decades.

"You took good care of me, all these years," Rasilyss said. "And I'd love you for that, even if you hadn't stolen my heart when I was a young girl. If I can come back when I am finished, I will. But, you are right, I have to go."

"I understand," he said, shuffling behind her as she went into the house and pulled the red robe out of the trunk where it had been stored for so many years. She dusted it off while he found her old walking shoes, the ones she hadn't worn since her illness had confined her to the house six winters ago. "I hope your goddess watches over you," he said quietly.

"She will," said Rasilyss. "And I think she will watch over you, as well."

Hanc made no reply as she walked down the lane and turned onto the King's Road, the highway running to the west. He waited until she was out of hearing, and then he began to weep.

"Are you awake. Have you seen it?" Adramis asked, speaking so quietly that-even if there had been others present-his words would have been inaudible to all, except Aenell. His twin sat up straight, her eyes wide, and she nodded solemnly.

"Yes. I can picture it in my mind," she replied in the same almost telepathic whisper. "A wondrous thing!"

"You have to come outside to see it for real-it's beautiful. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen!"

He took her by the hand, leading her from the tent she shared with several dozen other elf women. The two elves made their way through the sprawling camp, past the low fires and the multitude of slumbering refugees, many of whom were sheltered only by the blankets wrapped around their slim, shivering bodies. The two siblings avoided looking upward, in common agreement, until they were past the last of the fires and the full vastness of the night yawned before them.

Then they stopped and craned their necks, turning their wondering eyes to the vault of the sky. The three moons beamed down at them in the full zenith of the Night of the Eye. Solinari to the left, Lunitari to the right… and between-keenly sensed by the twin elves even though they could not see it-the shadow of Nuitari in the middle.

The moons seemed to be dancing up there, pulsing and shimmering in a strangely compelling pattern. There was no sound in the night, but in the hearts of the two elves-both of whom had been apprentice wizards more than forty years earlier-the rhythm of the night rang out as a hypnotic song.