Lord of the White Robes

Lord of the White Robes

“Bitterness is how we punish ourselves for other people’s sins.” 

― Matshona Dhliwayo

When Palin went into the woods now, he went to gather ingredients for healing poultices. Set adrift after the second departure of the gods and the loss of the magic he had dedicated his life to, he had begun spending increasing amounts of time at the bar of the Inn of the Last Home. He might have lost himself entirely in the bottom of a perpetual glass of Qualinesti wine, had his father not noticed and chased Palin away from the barroom floor.  

“Go do something useful with yourself, lad,” Caramon had said, not unkindly. “You don’t want to go that way. Trust me, I know.”

Palin was not yet so far gone that he had lost respect for his father, and his appreciation for his own mental faculties was such that he was inclined to take the advice. He set aside the wine glass before it became an addiction. Yet there was nothing else that could distract him from the hollow abyss that had taken up residence where his magic had once dwelt. Even his tentative romance with Usha failed to hold his interest. He often felt her forlorn gaze upon his back, the sad golden eyes of this girl who had arguably lost as much as he had. But the attraction he had experienced during the Chaos War had turned awkward and fumbling, and as beautiful as she was, they had very little in common. Conversations between them foundered on the rocks of their very different interests. The open, naïve demeanour that Palin had once found charming now grated like a kender’s chatter.

It was the town’s former cleric, Aldo Cassian, who finally offered substantial distraction. Not finding any sanctuary in the ironically named-Solace, Palin had wandered into the greater valley and onto the shores of Crystalmir Lake. Lost in a forlorn stupor, he had almost stumbled upon the the abandoned priest. He found the man kneeling by a bush, examining leaves with a serious mien. Palin hesitated before speaking the man’s name, for Aldo had doffed the shining white raiment of a Revered Son of Paladine in favour of forest greens.

“Cleric Cassian,” he said at last, faintly.  

Aldo stood and smiled, brushing dirt from his plain robes. “No cleric anymore, young Master Majere. Just a simple woodsman. How goes it?”

Palin shrugged, unwilling to delve into his feelings when he already knew what he would find there. “Well enough. Are you looking for berries?”

“There are some lovely blackberries nearby, but no. I have been looking for ingredients to make medicines for the town. Now that we are no longer able to rely on more supernatural means, I thought it prudent to dive back into the methods of our not-so-distant ancestors. There is a great deal of herbcraft available to us if we know where to look.”

Palin stared. It had only been three months since the final departure of the gods, yet rather than dragging himself through each day as the former wizard did, this former devotee of the Platinum Dragon applied himself to finding practical solutions for a world without healers. Palin was seized by a strange combination of contempt and admiration, and he could not have said which was the stronger feeling.

“You can join me,” Aldo added, with a casual air that failed to hide the knowledge in his eyes, “If you care to.”

The former White Robe swallowed and crossed over to Aldo. He was not entirely ignorant of herb-craft, having studied the local plantlife for the collection of his spell components, but he could not say that he knew the strictly medicinal application of every plant in Solace.

He glanced into a cloth back nestled in the grass at Aldo’s feet. “What are you looking for?”

Aldo Cassian swung the pack from his back and took out a leather-bound book. He flipped it open, revealing skilled hand-drawings of different flowers and herbs.

“Take it,” he said gently.

Palin took the book into his hands. Before the gods’ departure from Krynn, Paladine had hinted at some other source of magic, yet in the time since then, Palin had not felt the slightest flicker of any magical source. While he was not prepared to abandon the search, he would need a profession to sustain himself, and he could not imagine working in his father’s inn.

Healer should suit him well enough.

Caramon and Tika’s demeanors visibly improved when they saw their only remaining son applying himself to practical work. Tika laid a generous breakfast on the table each morning before Palin went out with Aldo, and though he only ate perhaps half of it, he did feel better, healthier.

“You’ll do all right,” Caramon said brightly, slapping his son on the shoulder. “It wasn’t the end of the world, after all.” Caramon roared with laughter, as if he had said something witty.

Palin felt a wave of furious irritation roll through him. He was inclined to give his father the benefit of the doubt and not immediately assume that Caramon was trivializing his loss, but the implication that he should carry on blithely, as if becoming a naturalist healer were adequate substitute for his magical vocation, made his whole body stiffen.

“No, not the end of the world,” he whispered. “Just nearly.”

Just the end of my world.

Palin pulled away from his father’s beefy hand. He saw a complicated expression pass over Caramon’s face and knew that he had once again reminded his father of his lost twin. Similar insights had brought Palin both pleasure and longing in the past, but after having met and lost Raistlin himself, Palin found that the knowledge only amplified the hollow longing for magic that plagued him.

“I need to go,” Palin said.

He thought that his father would give up on the conversation, but Caramon’s expression firmed.

“Don’t you think you should wear something more suited for the woods?”

Palin let his eyes drop down to the clothes he was wearing. His white robes, no longer protected by a minor cleaning spell, were stained with dirt and plant residue. They looked more like the robes of an itinerant than a mage, but Palin was not prepared to replace them as easily as Aldo Cassian had.

“They look suited for the woods to me. Goodbye, Father.”

This time he avoided looking at Caramon as he pulled away.

“Palin,” Caramon insisted. “I’m only trying to help.”

 The former mage ignored his father’s plea. There was no sense continuing what Palin saw as a pointless conversation. He had no doubt that his father would advise him to let go and move on, but Caramon hardly seemed qualified to offer such advice. His father’s whole life had been dictated by the ghosts of the past. Palin felt the burden to please his father increase exponentially since the loss of his own brothers in a minor skirmish at the start of the Chaos War, but he would not let Caramon change the dedication to magic that lay at the very core of Palin’s soul.

Even if holding on seemed futile now, he would not let go.

Leaving his father behind, Palin opened the door of the Inn and saw that it was a typical late autumn morning, overcast and grim, with the promise of rain in the long-hanging clouds. He descended the mighty Vallenwood tree as quickly as he could, but when he reached the bottom, he saw more trouble in the form of Usha, scampering down from a neighbouring tree at the same time.

Caramon and Tika had offered Usha shelter after the war. They had given her a job and use of the little house that Sturm had built. Palin's brothers had rarely been home after joining the knighthood, but it had been Sturm's all the same. Palin had been inside only once since the war, to help Usha move in. Once had been enough. Seeing his brother’s simple possessions, packing them away and knowing that Sturm would never touch them again, but been almost unendurable. Worse still was knowing that Tika had given Usha the furniture, the blankets and sheets and other practical household items. If he went back, he would have to see those things again, and know that they belonged to someone else now. Better to avoid it. He had too much else to sort through without examining his grief.

“Palin!” the young woman called out to him as she dropped lightly onto the dirt of the town centre. “Wait!”

Palin adopted a firm pace and strode toward the edge of Solace. When he heard Usha call his name again and start in pursuit, he began to run. Only slightly hampered by the robes that had been his garments for years, Palin’s longer limbs had little trouble outstripping the girl’s. He soon left the town behind, and after a few minutes Usha abandoned the chase. Palin’s mind flashed briefly on the story of the White Hart, the magic deer pursued by Huma Dragonbane. For a moment, he felt like such a creature, a rare and enchanted thing. But there was no magic anymore. No magic spells. No magic creatures. None of the magic in his blood that had once bubbled up with such ecstatic force and sublime subtlety.

Palin’s legs pumped under his robes, putting Solace far behind him. The usual pain of prolonged movement failed to materialize, and the young man continued to run, enjoying the freedom from expectation and the people who burdened him with it. He thought back on the offer that Raistlin had made during his Test. He might have been his uncle’s apprentice if he had taken the Black Robes, and learned all of the secrets contained within the fell covers of the black spellbooks in the Tower of Palanthas. Instead, like a weak fool, he had allowed himself to be constrained by the expectations of his parents.

And how he had paid for his weakness. Palin had little doubt that with Raistlin’s powerful insight, the Chaos War would never have happened. It was not only Palin who had proven himself a fool, but the gods that all of the people of Krynn had depended on, including its Wizards of High Sorcery.

I belong with Aldo, Palin thought bleakly. We wizards proved ourselves no more than clerics after all. We who thought ourselves so gifted and independent, so unique. Just dupes to the stars.

He cleared the trees and saw the Crystalmir Lake appear in the distance. Aldo would be close, for they had agreed to meet on the shore by mid-morning, but Palin could suddenly no longer endure the idea of going about the business of collecting herbs and berries, grinding poultices and mixing medicinal potions whose successes would be determined by the mundane processes of the earth.

He stopped running while he was still in the shadow of the trees, with the long grasses brushing his knees. His breath slowed and evened out, yet the fury that pumped through his blood did not subside.

“How dare you!” Palin screamed at the sky. “How dare you call yourselves gods!”

Oh, but there was no one left to hear him, was there. If he stood here long enough and waited for night to fall, he would see one small, desolate yellow moon, and a mass of incoherent stars.

“Fools! No better than any mortal! You took it all with you. You had no right!”

His voice was a mad wail is his own ears, forlorn and terrible, but it felt so good to finally let loose the fury in his soul. Who else was there to blame, after all, but the idiot deities who had been too asinine to realize what the Greygem had contained. Dougan Redhammer, Reorx himself, had gambled away the artifact as stupidly as any mortal.

“A gully dwarf might have shown more cunning!” Palin shouted.

He fell silent with the awareness of his words falling back, from the hollow heavens to the earth.

“Palin, lad,” Aldo Cassian’s soft voice called out to him. “Are you well?”

Palin’s robes were caught by the thorns and burs of a spindly bush as he turned. He saw the cleric coming from the trees with his hands out like a hunter trying to gentle a deer.

Just like Huma and the White Hart, Palin thought again. He didn’t resist the panicked laugher that clawed its way up his throat. It emerged in a hoarse bark.

“Well? Who can be well now? We’ve been abandoned. Left all alone in a merciless universe. Everything that people said after the Cataclysm, every accusation against the gods, every lack of faith that they dared to chide us for—they’re true! It’s all true,” he insisted.

Aldo swallowed and shook his head. “Palin—they had no choice. Isn’t that what you said, what your father said after the war? They made a bargain for us with Chaos.”

“Oh, yes, and was it not their fault that they had to make that bargain? They who left the Greygem to bounce around Krynn since the Age of Might?”

He saw Aldo’s brown eyes crinkle with confusion and remembered that not many people were aware of the connection between the Father of the Gods and the Greygem.

“It doesn’t matter,” Palin whispered. “Nothing matters!”

Aldo crept closer, still holding out his hand. Slowly, the other arm reached up to join it. There was a hot star of fury and confusion in Palin’s chest, and it grew as he stood trembling, while the cleric approached. The morning had grown even cooler, a chill wind was blowing with the promise of the coming winter, but it was still warm enough to give rise to a mist. Rolling off the still surface of the lake, the grey torrent thickened as it approached and began creeping across the grasses.

Aldo reached him at the same time the mists did. The grey moisture curled around their feet in lazy, thick tendrils as the healer reached out to lay gentle hands on Palin, one of his chest and one on his shoulder. A few months ago, a divine touch might have quieted Palin’s raging heart, but now, in the absence of Paladine, he felt the pulse of his blood quicken further.

“Palin,” Aldo said. “Listen lad, there is still much to live for. We must have faith.”

It was entirely the wrong thing to say. The mass of rage in Palin’s chest burst like puss from a wound. He released an incoherent scream of rage and pushed the former cleric away from him. Palin was no warrior, but he was younger than Aldo, and there was strength in his arms from his recent travels. He expected to see the man stumble, but the portly healer fell onto the ground.

The man who had been a Revered Son of Paladine crashed back into the mist that curled through the grasses, and Palin heard a sharp sound, like a rock cracking a window. He was horrified to see blood pouring onto the grass from behind Aldo’s head. The healer’s eyes gave a final, slow blink and then lay still. Palin reached down through the thickening mist and felt behind the man. There was a long, sharp rock stuck in the back of Aldo’s head that Palin could have sworn had not been on the ground before. It was slim and pointed and look like a stone knife jutting from the cleric’s skull.

Palin stumbled back from the body. There was blood on his hands from where he had touched Aldo’s head, viscous and red and dripping from between Palin’s fingers. The mist was now so thick around him that he could hardly see beyond his own hands. He thought that he should go back to town, bring the healer’s body back home. But there would be questions. The town constabulary would want to know how this had happened. Palin could see his freedom constrained or confiscated entirely.

He might even be hanged. His father was respected, but not politically influential, and there was only so much that Caramon could do against a murder charge.

“Murder,” Palin whispered.

The word bounced through the mist and then back again as if in an echoing chamber.

Murder. Murder. Murder.

“No!” he shouted. “It was an accident!”

Murder. Murder.

“I didn’t mean to do it. He brought it on himself. They all do it. Every day I see it in my father’s eyes. The relief! He’s glad that the magic is gone, that I can’t touch it anymore. He won’t say it, but I know! And Aldo felt the same. He thought to “purify” me,” Palin spat. “But I am still dedicated to the magic. I won’t forget! I will never forget!”

The mist rose tenaciously higher, and Palin could finally see nothing. This was a fog such as he had never witnessed, as thick and impenetrable as a grey wall. The former mage stumbled forward to where Aldo’s body had lain, but even when Palin fell to his hands and knees and felt about in the grass, he failed to find the man’s remains. Even the grass felt strange, rubbery and featureless.

“What is this?” Palin whispered. His voice was dampened and distant, as if he were listening to someone speaking from another room.

“Who is doing this?” he shouted.

Who. who.

The mist felt completely unnatural, magical, yet Palin knew that it could not be. There was no one and nothing left on Krynn who could perform such feats.

Perhaps the All Father had returned, he thought with a chill, while his children were far away, and made good on his promise to destroy their little world. This time not with fire, but with a mere blink or his eye or wave of his hand. Was Palin the only one left in the world, he wondered, or was everyone caught up in this awful mist, damned to wander alone for eternity.

The idea didn’t frighten him as much as it should have. If it were so, he would never have to face the consequences of Aldo Cassian’s death. He would never have to face the devastation in his father’s eyes. It was a cowardly notion, and Palin did not consider himself a cowardly man, but who would not wish to avoid the greatest of punishments for a mere accident.

And if there was something wrong with his thinking, if his conscience clamoured for attention, it was easy enough to turn away when he seemed to be the only man left in the world.

Palin was tempted to start walking, but he was already turned around enough that he might walk straight into the lake, if it were still there. Instead, he stood still. If the mists were natural, they would soon clear, and he would determine a course of action. If they were unnatural, making plans now would not help him.

He waited for a long time, silent and still, yet he was plagued by the feeling that the earth itself was moving at a speed faster than dragons. The mist was a solid wall, but he thought that if he might look beyond it that he would see the whole universe flying past.

Palin’s eyes drooped and eventually he could stand no more. With no hope of ever seeing Solace again, he curled up on the ground and fell into a sleep as deep as the one that had carried his uncle through decades in the Abyss itself.  

When he woke once more, it was night. A low moan of pain escaped Palin, and he turned over on limbs that ached from sleeping on small hard rocks and rough grass. He sat up carefully, rubbing long, slim hands across his face, scrubbing away the dirt and some of the soreness.

When he opened his eyes, he thought that the light on his skin and the stained white robe was brighter than usual. The small yellow satellite that the people of Solace had taken to simply calling “the moon” never shed such radiance even when full. Hardly daring to breathe, Palin turned his eyes up to the heavens. He thought he felt his heart skip a beat when he saw the enormous white moon, full and brilliant and dominating the dome of the sky.

“What is this?” he whispered.

Leveraging himself up with one hand, Palin examined the landscape. Crystalmir Lake had vanished entirely, and he knew that his impression of movement had been correct. The mists that he thought must have transported him to this place lingered still, in slow tendrils that withdrew when he reached out to touch them. The impression of animation was very strong, and Palin had little doubt that the mists were magical in nature, however impossible that might be.

The former wizard stood on a hill overlooking the last, narrow edge of a forest. Turning around, he saw the greater part of the forest was at his back. The trees were largely pines, with needles grown long and dense. The wood was partially concealed by sinuous tendrils of fog and a heavy curtain of mist, but some of the plants appeared to be familiar, things that Palin had seen in Solace and on his travels across Ansalon, while other grasses, vines and seeds were alien. His recent studies with Aldo provided no further illumination, despite the cleric’s masterful knowledge of plantlife.

The thought of Aldo brought with it a tremendous rush of guilt and near-terror, and Palin wondered if his attack on the cleric were in some way connected with the bizarre mists that had brought him to this place. Drawing a line between the two events would appear irrational to those unschooled in magic, but Palin’s tutelage had often demonstrated that strong emotions and magical events occurred in confluence. Although the gods’ departure from Krynn had eliminated the magic of the three moons, Paladine’s claim that there was still magic to be found in the world rang ominously in Palin’s memory. It was possible, he speculated, that he had in some way accessed that magic during his mad frenzy of anger at the failed deities and the accident with Aldo.

A sudden flutter of movement seized Palin’s attention and he turned to see a deer gracefully skipping out of the wood, heading for a broad, shallow stream at the base of the hill. Even as Palin watched, more animals emerged from the trees. Their movements were tense and uneasy, and Palin tensed in turn.

The sound of heavy banging and thrashing echoed from somewhere in the woods, and Palin did not stop to think before he threw himself down the hill after the deer, foxes and raccoons. He stumbled half-way and fell onto the grass. The slope of the hill created momentum and he began rolling downward, just as he had in the hills of Solace when he was a child. But a child’s game had never contained anything like the roaring from the woods, and Palin rolled frantically to put more distance between himself and the threat.

The hill abruptly ended, and Palin landed with a splash in the icy stream. He held back a shout as wet rocks poked at his exposed skin and the stream soaked his robe, then used a boulder in the centre of the stream to take cover from the thing in the woods. He kept his back to the trees so that he could lean against the rocks and conceal his body. One he had settled against the stone, Palin sneaked a glance around the side. His heart beat faster when he saw the daunting form of a hill giant emerge from the woods. The creature was draped in filthy rags and carried an enormous branch as a club. It sniffed at the air and peered behind tree trunks while Palin watched. The deer and other animals in the stream with Palin fled to the other side, but the giant seemed to take little notice of them.

“I know yer out here, little man,” the giant rumbled. “I smell yer.”

The creature belched a menacing laugh, and Palin held his breath. More than anything, he wished for his magic. His only weapon was the knife that he carried up his sleeve, the only weapon permitted to wizards of High Sorcery. After the gods had gone, he might have freely taken a sword in the knife’s stead. His parents had suggested as much, but the thought had filled Palin with revulsion.

The giant poked about, moving inevitably closer to Palin’s position. The monster’s olfactory claim was no idle boast, and Palin knew enough about animals with superior senses of smell to understand that the water would not throw this creature off the scent. If anything, it might carry Palin’s scent to the shore and betray his position more quickly.

Palin poked his head back around the rock and saw the giant stepping into the stream, just as if he had been following the former wizard’s thoughts. There was no help for it. He would have to run. But with no knowledge of the surrounding area, or even if he was still on Krynn at all, Palin didn’t give much credence to his chances. Nevertheless, he tensed his muscles and burst upward to a standing position, launching himself across the stream. He heard the hill giant bellow with triumph and tensed in anticipation of his own destruction.

He gasped with relief when he heard the monster slip on the cold, wet rocks and go tumbling into the stream. A rough shout of pain alerted him that the creature had been at least superficially injured. Conscious of a narrow window of escape, Palin forced himself to run more quickly. He passed into the small outcropping of woods and prayed —although to whom he did not know— that there was nothing more terrible than the giant inside.

The wet gasps of his breath in his ears cloaked anything Palin might have heard inside the trees. Except for the crunch of sticks and the clatter of pebbles under his own feet, he was conscious of nothing, while his vision was a grey blur that darkened with each step until he saw only leaves so green they were almost black, and the shadows that lay thick all around him.

Yet even his breath was not so loud that he failed to hear when the giant once more took up a lumbering pursuit, slamming into trees and crushing fallen branches beneath huge, clumsy feet. A rough bellow shook the forest and woke the sleeping birds who fled, shrieking, into the midnight sky.

Palin felt his heart give a painful jolt that sent a renewed rush of desperate energy through his body, but he was keenly aware that he would not last for much longer. When the ground tilted under him, he used the slope to build up speed naturally. He did his best not to lose his footing again, but when he reached the bottom of the slope in a sudden, great rush, he stumbled on a rock and fell forward. His breath exploded from his lungs while a pained moan escaped him.

I’m going to die here, Palin thought bleakly, and I don’t even know where I am.

Slowly, Palin’s breath evened out and he realized that the sounds of pursuit had vanished. He thought it might be possible that his dogged flight had thrown off the giant, especially after the creature had been injured, but there was something about the place where he had fallen that made him feel uneasy. It was eerily silent, utterly still. Palin felt the cool breeze on his face, but the leaves of the trees seemed to be utterly still. He pulled himself painfully upward and stood with his hands on his knees, wheezing for breath and wishing that he had taken Tanin’s offer of a personal exercise program when he had had the chance.

A light tittering immediately straightened him. He saw a slight, humanoid shadow, staring out from the trees with luminous, flickering eyes. A curious wave of dread swept over Palin and he stumbled back, waving his hands through the air in a futile attempt to ward off the creature as it oozed closer.

A flicker of the clear, white moonlight passed through the trees, and Palin caught a glimpse of the thing’s face. He immediately recognized the pointed features of a kender, but this thing was like no kender he had ever seen. Its face was twisted and corrupt, and the feral light in its eyes was a demon’s glare.

“Dear gods,” Palin whispered before he could catch himself. It was clear that his prayers had once more been ignored.

“The only gods here are in the mist,” the kender whispered back. Its jaws stretched open, revealing fangs that grew longer as Palin watched.

He hadn’t thrown the giant off his trail, Palin realized. The giant had been afraid of this.

There was only one creature that he knew of that grew teeth like that, and although he had never encountered a vampire before, he knew something of its weaknesses. Palin snatched a fallen branch with a jagged end from the forest floor. It felt good in his hand, solid and reassuring, although he wasn’t at all sure that he would be able to drive it through the creature’s body.

The vampire threw back its head and emitted a bone-chilling peal of laughter that made Palin draw back in a full-body cringe. His ears rang painfully, and he felt something suspiciously wet drip down the right side of his face. Still he did not drop the wood.

The kender scowled hideously and launched itself through the air, mouth wide open and fangs shining silver in the moonlight. Palin thrust at it with the stick but stumbled with the kender vampire suddenly dissolved into a fine mist. The creature rematerialized a few feet away and laughed again. The sound was not as painful as the first time, but Palin could already see the end. Sooner or later—very likely sooner—he was going to lose the last of his energy, and then the creature would have him. Then he, the mage who had played a critical role in the defeat of the very Father of the Gods, would die here in this strange, dark place, alone and so very far from home.

He thought of Aldo Cassian, lying quiet and still next to the lake, and knew that he deserved it.

Palin watched his hand holding out the branch in front of him, watch it shake with terror and exhaustion, and wished more than anything that the branch was his staff. The useless, brittle, empty Staff of Magius that he had given to Raistlin before his uncle had left Krynn for the last time. Palin could picture the staff perfectly just as it had been the last time he had used it, alight with power before the forces of Chaos. He had often longed for it after the end of the war and wished fiercely that he had kept it with him.

In the white light of the moon, Palin could clearly imagine that the crystal from the staff and the clawed hand sat at the jagged stick he wielded against the vampire. The image was so real, and he so desperate, that the keyword escaped him before he could reconsider.

“Shirak,” Palin whispered.

The vampire shrieked and dematerialized as brilliant light exploded through the forest. Palin gasped and almost dropped the stick in his hand. What had been a rough, fallen branch was now polished wood and thrumming with power. It was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Staff of Magius.

He didn’t waste time gaping. The staff had a teleportation property that he had never used because he had always travelled with companions and the spell could only transport one. Teleportation without a firm destination was extremely dangerous, but staying in the woods with these monsters was riskier by far, so he grasped the polished wood firmly and pictured himself far from the kender vampire, somewhere safe. The warm wood gave the impression of hesitation, as if it were not sure where it should go or even if it should obey, and Palin gripped it more firmly, squeezing his eyes shut and giving a firmer mental command. A sudden thrill of magic coursed through his blood, and a rough sob escaped Palin.

It had all been worth it. All of the terror, even the awful encounter with Aldo in by the lake. All of it had been worth it just to feel this again.

The magic, lost and now returned to him.

As if it were responding to his certainty, the crystal flared, and Palin vanished.

The stone giant called Nabon hovered near the edge of the Wanderers’ camp. His thick grey body leaning against an even thicker oak tree, he stared pensively into the woods. The Iron Hills were utterly black, despite the campfire  that leaped and sparked with the sorcerous shadow play of Madame Vadoma, Madame Magda Kulchevich’s spiritual successor in the tribe.

Vadoma had never met Magda, the fierce and brave first leader of Sithicus’ Vistani. She had come through the mists long after Magda’s cursed daughter Inza had fatally betrayed her mother. But the Vistani Wanderers had needed a leader, and they had begged the foreign bard to stay among them in Sithicus, where they had so many sworn enemies. They had been honest about the risk, or as honest as they could be. No one could have known then that the nature of the land itself was changing. Lord Soth, who had in his own strange way protected Magda's Wanderers, had vanished, either destroyed or having escaped the domain entirely— an unprecedented victory against the Dark Powers of the Mists, if it were true—and the werebadger Azrael ruled the peoples of Sithicus now, although many whispered that there was something dark and awful in the Great Chasm, something far more powerful than the petty, mad king.

And then there was the Guilt. 

Nabon closed the heavy silver folds of his eyelids. The guilt of Sithicus had risen much like the Mists – slowly, inexorably. It was a darkness that whispered in the ears of every captive citizen of the domain. It summoned to mind every cruelty, every crime, even the pettiest of misdeeds. It was as tireless as the undead, taking rest neither by day nor night.  Even the sun itself was no terror to the Guilt. 

In the time of Lord Soth, Nabon reflected, recalling the past had been next to impossible, and the creatures of the land had yearned for memories to give them shape. Now it was impossible to forget, and all of Sithicus longed for Soth’s blank, faceless terror to return.  

The sound of soft footsteps turned the giant back to the fire. A Vistani man reached up to touch the Nabon’s shoulder lightly, looking at him with concern. 

“Won’t you come back to the fire, Friend Giant?” 

Friend Giant. There it was. No matter how long he stayed with the Wanderers, Nabon would never be more than a mere friend. Never one of them. Having been drawn into the Mists, Nabon had long ago lost his world and would never again have a place of his own. The Wanderers only accepted him because their own tribe in Sithicus was so fragmented, and they needed all the support and protection they could find. The stolen Vistani skin on Nabon’s feet and legs too so often gave them the false impression that Nabon deserved their friendship. The undead maverick that had called itself the Bloody Cobbler had harvested the soles of the Wanderers after Inza’s treachery had destroyed their owners, and given what remained to Nabon. The flesh of dead men had healed the legs that Azrael had cruelly destroyed, but it could only heal the body, never the spirit. 

“Come back to the fire,” the tribesman murmured. “It is not safe so far outside the circle. You know this.”

“I know. But I think I have to leave soon.”

The human patted his shoulder. “I know the itching in my feet as well as you. But for tonight, listen to Madame Vadoma.”

Nabon nodded and cast one last look at the forest before trudging back to the flames. As he settled by the campfire, Madame Vadoma turned to look at him. He saw the piercing regard and shifted before her dark eyes. The tale in the fire drew to an end, as did the voice of tribe’s rauni, its witch-leader, but Madame Vadoma did not look away. 

“Is there something amiss, Friend Nabon?” she asked. 

“No, nothing,” he muttered. 

Nothing more than what is ever amiss in this accursed land. 

The human woman uttered a low, husky chuckle, as if she had heard his thoughts. Perhaps she had. The Vistani had their ways, and Madame Vadoma was more skilled in their tricks than most. 

“I sense that we are going to have company tonight,” Madame Vadoma murmured. “The vista chiri had been passing on their messages. There is a stranger in the woods.”

Nabon started numbly at the woman. The vista chiri? 

“The birds,” Madame Vadoma said gently. “Perhaps before your time. The little red birds you see sometimes near the caravans. Once, long ago, the Vistani openly welcomed any giorgio -those humans who were not Vistani- able to follow the vista chiri to the camp. For those who survived the journey, sanctuary was provided.”

“But no more,” Nabon concluded. 

“It is difficult to believe that any land could be harsher than Barovia, but Sithicus is that. Our enemies here are numerous and powerful, and we can no longer afford to be so welcoming.”
 
“But you intend to welcome this newcomer. Why?”

Somewhere in the distant, blackened wood of the Iron Hills, Nabon thought that he heard the birds tweeting their messages, passing on their knowledge. Madame Vadoma did not appear alarmed, but the other Wanderers were not so phlegmatic. The small band withdrew weapons from their clothing and stood, arranging themselves into a rough battle formation. 

Madame Vadoma, still seated, waved a dismissive hand. 

“That won’t be necessary. The one who approaches is no threat to us at this time. I have seen it in the fire. Merely keep on your guard. Remember that nothing in Sithicus is innocent, particularly one who has been drawn here by the Mists.”

Nabon’s ears twitched with interest. “It is a Mistwalker that comes?”

“Yes, stone giant, one who has been drawn here just as you were.”

“Might I serve as guide, then?”

Vadoma’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “You hope that he comes from your own world, that you might have news of all that has passed. I do not believe that this is so.”

Nabon’s shoulders slumped, but he persisted. “But you are not certain.”

The rauni offered a languid shrug. “Not entirely. But you would make a good guide to an outsider. The rest of us were all born here in the Mists. Very well,” she said with brusque finality, “The traveller is your responsibility.”

The foreign giant wondered if he had made a mistake when he felt her decision fall upon him like a stone. He had undertaken more than he quite understood, and he wondered, too late, if he had been manipulated into a task that none of the isolationist Vistani would have found palatable. But he thanked the implacable Vadoma because he was unwilling to risk his place among the Wanderers. There were sympathetic looks from the others, and a few claps on the giant’s back before he stood. The woods were very dark, and he knew better than most the monstrous creatures that walked the night in Sithicus. 

“Should I wait here for him?” Nabon was ashamed to hear a note of pleading in his voice. 

“It is better if you find him. This one has no allegiance here yet, and bringing him out of danger can only benefit us all.”

With a resigned sigh, the stone giant stood and trudged to the edge of the camp. Away from the luminous warmth of the Vistani fire, Nabon blinked to activate his Dark Vision. He resisted the urge to look back at the Wanderers or plead his safety with Madame Vadoma. A thrill went down his back, all the way to the stolen skin of his feet, when he stepped into the woods. Even in terrible danger, he felt the rush of stepping away from settled places, the knowledge of the wind, earth and sky welcoming him home. 

The Dark Vision common to all giants served him well, and he could see in shades of grey for a few dozen feet in every direction almost as well as he might in the day. Branches and long grasses crunched under Nabon’s long feet, the only sound outside of the occasional hoot from an owl and, far off, the eerie voices of wolves. Nabon looked up at the sky. The moon was full, even huger and more brilliant than it had been from the Vistani camp. He frowned. In fact it was improbably huge, more than twice the size that it had been a half an hour previously. Even a larger-looking moon usually shrank in size throughout the night, as it moved higher in the sky. 

The giant blinked twice, dismissing his Dark Vision so that he might look upon the moon with eyes that processed light. An involuntary gasp escaped him. This was not the flickering, red-streaked single moon that had ruled over Sithicus since Lord Soth’s departure. 

This was Solinari.

One of the three of moons of Krynn, the world from which Lord Soth had hailed, it had disappeared shortly after Soth had. Nabon scanned the skies for blood-red Lunitari and saw nothing. It was possible that he was wrong, yet he remembered the clear illumination of the white moon from Soth’s time distinctly, and he saw no difference.

A shiver that was not just from the cold night ran down Nabon’s back and arms. He sensed change in the air. A stranger newly appeared and the landscape of Sithicus shifting as it had not in many years. He hoped that the change would be for the good. 

Yet, in the domain of the Mists, that was so rarely the case.

A bright flare of light broke through a bare spot in the overhanging foliage, and Palin looked up at white moon that hung like a great lamp in the night. It was Solinari, or close enough as to make no difference. Now that he had escaped the deadly creatures that haunted this place, at least for the moment, Palin was able to examine his surroundings. The Staff of Magius remained fixed and warm in his hand, pulsing with power, but he was not ready to turn his attention to it. If the staff’s return were a trick, some awful slight of hand, Palin did not think he would be able to bear it. Instead he watched the moon. The shadows that crossed it were the same as those that had given depth and texture to Solinari. They were the same, but the longer that Palin looked at it the more he thought that they were not entirely the same. There was the face of the god, but instead of the benevolent, serene smile Palin that had beamed over Krynn, this Solinari seemed to be grinning mirthlessly down at the surface of the world, and the grin had teeth. 

Palin pulled his soaked robes more tightly around his chest in a vain attempt to find warmth. The brisk autumn winds had done nothing to dry the cloth, and the former devotee of Solinari feared that he would soon become ill. He fell a chill moving through his body, light but threatening to grow more violent. Increasingly, he despaired of his situation. He had no idea of where he was, where to find shelter, or even of what was safe to eat, and this woods was full of monsters and wild animals. Unless he found a solution to any of his problems, he considered his ultimate survival unlikely. 

A rustle of movement up ahead drew his wary gaze. He glimpsed a dark shadow, something long and flowing, in the distance. A beam of moonlight passed over it, and Palin saw that it was a person, heavily cloaked and walking in the opposite direction.

“Hello!” Palin shouted.

He began to run toward what might be his only chance of escaping the awful forest. The other person continued moving forward, as if they had not heard him.

“Wait for me! Please!”

At last the newcomer slowed to a graceful stop. A hand emerged from a wide, black sleeve, and Palin saw that the appendage was slim, but long and strong, the hand of a man. The hand beckoned him onward, and Palin kept running, but no matter how hard he ran he never seemed to catch up.

“Wait!”

Only when Palin stumbled to a halt, shivering with terror and exhaustion, did the man he was pursuing at last turn and push back his dark hood. 

Palin fell back in shock, destabilized and dumbfounded by the utter incongruity of seeing Raistlin Majere’s hourglass eyes. The former White Robe stared while the spectre of his uncle pointed to a bush full of berries. The Black Robe paced forward and back again, then stood still, his dark garments fluttering in the night winds. Palin ran for the bushes and saw that the berries appeared edible, similar to raspberries. He filled the inner pocket of his robes, watching Raistlin carefully the entire time. 

“Where is this place?” Palin called out. He again pursued his uncle, but with each step he took, Raistlin moved back another. 

“Uncle, please! Am I am on Krynn? Have the gods returned?”

He did not truly believe that they had, and was not surprised when Raistlin shook his head with clear impatience. 

“Then where?” Palin pleaded. 

“Beware,” Raistlin whispered at last. “Beware, my nephew.”

The archmage turned away and immediately vanished into the trees. Palin shouted and ran to where he had last seen Raistlin, but the woods were empty and cold. 

“Uncle!” he howled. Palin turned lost circles with his soaked robes clinging to his him and his arms thrust out, beseeching. “Come back!”

Shortly after the reappearance of Solinari in the sky, Nabon heard a man shouting. Voices carried far in the Iron Hills, sometimes farther than could be rationally explained, though rarely when help was called for. The unearthly creatures that haunted the wood were said to hear a whimper from a hundred miles away, and be drawn to it like wolves to the scent of fresh blood.

The giant listened carefully in the hope of being the first one to reach the mortal in the wood. He thought it unlikely that there were two people stumbling about alone in the wood at midnight, and so this must be the new Mistwalker, and Nabon’s charge from Madame Vadoma.

“Uncle! Come back!”

Nabon’s brow furrowed. Perhaps there were two more people in the wood, but he thought it peculiar and alarming that the rauni had mentioned nothing of another. Had she meant to send him into danger, or were her own powers of foretelling failing her?

Though at first he hesitated, the giant decided to follow the voice to its source and worry about the rest later. Once he had recovered the first individual, it would be a simple matter for both of them to go in search of the second together.

Palin crashed into the bushes where he had last seen Raistlin and found nothing, not so much as a hint of a robe. There in the thickest copse, the overhanging vegetation was so dark that the young mage could not see even a sliver of the moon that so closely resembled lost Solinari. With no other idea of where to go, he pushed through the branches and found himself in a tangle of burs and brambles, all clinging tenaciously to the wet wool of his autumn robes. Palin cursed and retreated, only to find himself stuck in place, a prisoner of the trees in every direction. The forest itself seemed to be holding him immobile.

His impression was confirmed when the branches holding him began to constrict, and what he had vaguely taken for the truck of a tree split open to reveal a gaping maw filled with long, sharp teeth, all of them dripping with rancid, sap-like ichor. The tangle of branches slowly drew him toward the open mouth. Palin desperately resisted the urge to scream. Using the techniques of his magical schooling, he deliberately ignored his mortal peril and slowed his panicked breathing so that he could think clearly.

He felt his pulse return to something approaching normal and only then used his limited control of his arms to lift the Staff of Magius. He left it dark, but visualized the vines and brambles dropping away. A bright crackle of power, invisible but furious, moved through his arms and down the staff. The plant creature howled from its fanged maw and the tendrils dropped away. Palin gasped with relief and rapidly freed himself, running away from the plant before it could recover from its shock.

Palin clutched his staff close, desperately grateful for its presence. Even just working the artifact made him feel like a mage again, made him feel like himself for the first time since the end of the Chaos War. He was now certain that it was no trick or illusion. The staff was real and it worked. How, Palin did not know, and for the time being did not care.

Once he had returned to the less sparsely grown area woods, where the moon was still clear, Palin looked around, hoping to see Raistlin again. He thought he must have searched behind every trunk and leaf, although with far more caution after his encounter with the hungry creature that had so closely resembled an oak, but he failed to find his uncle. Lost, cold and hungry as he was, Palin wondered if he had imagined Raistlin entirely. Yet there was the matter of the berries. Raistlin had shown him where to find food.

Thinking of food, Palin’s stomach tensed and rumbled, and he reached into his pocket for a handful of the tiny fruit. He had only eaten a few when what sounded like twigs and leaves cracking under a heavy footstep had the young man who had once trained as a war wizard assuming a battle-ready pose with his staff high above his head. As exhausted as he was, his arm trembled and his whole body shivered in the midnight chill. He did his best to appear ready for any foe, although he was uncertain that he had sufficient power left to confront so much as a common rat.

At last the bushes to the left of Palin parted and a huge, stone-grey creature stepped through. It had the height of a giant, and regarded Palin with a calculating stare.

“The woods are no place to wander at night,” the creature rumbled. “You must come with me.”

With the memory of the vicious forest giant still fresh, and near-delirious from the cold and the shock of all that had happened to him, Palin did not really hear the newcomer’s offer. He swung the Staff of Magius in a wide, terrified arch and prayed with the desperation of a man who believes that he is already doomed.

“Solinari, aid me!” Palin screamed.

A beam of light from the improbably familiar moon fell on Palin and the staff in his hand turned as white as molten metal before it struck the face of his new foe.The grey giant screamed and fell to the ground, clutching its eyes and moaning with terror and agony.

Elation ran through Palin’s veins. This was the magic returned to him, the true magic that he had dreamed of every night since the departure of the gods. The Staff was a complex artifact that could perform certain feats independent of its user, but not this great torrent of power. That had been Palin’s alone; he had channelled it through the staff and he was now certain that he would be able to do so through the medium of a spell. Unfortunately, he had used his very last incantation by the end of the battle against Chaos. Not so much as a cantrip lingered in Palin’s brain. If he were to truly cast again, in the refined way of an educated mage, he would have to find resources in this place: other wizards to learn from or spellbooks to study. He would need to find pen and paper; to begin building his own spell collection again, as well as studying the local flaura and fauna for likely spell components.

He was so absorbed by these compelling thoughts that it was several moments before he perceived, through the giant’s moans, that the creature was repeating the same words again and again:

“Help me. Help me.”

Nabon clutched at his eyes, rubbing and pressing in an attempt to dismiss the white light that dominated his vision. The light pressed on him so that he saw nothing else, and it burned as if he had stared into the sun for hours.

“Help me. Help me,” he pleaded.

There was no one there but the wizard who had inflicted the injury on him, but he remembered the terror on the young man’s face and hoped that the Mistwalker had blinded him in self-defence rather than malice.

A tentative hand on his arm startled him, and Nabon forced himself to relax.

“I’m sorry,” the stranger whispered. “I didn’t mean to… it should only be temporary.”

He didn’t sound at all sure.

“Can’t you take it away?”

“No. You need time to recover. Or I can take you to a cleric…if you have one.”

“What’s a cleric?” Nabon muttered.

He heard a sigh in his ear, and then the stranger gripped his upper arm and began leveraging the stone giant to his feet. “I suppose it was too much to hope for. Here, help me get you up.”

Nabon put his other hand on the forest floor and slowly stood, keeping his head down to protect it from dangers he could not longer see.

“I’ll stay with you,” the wizard whispered. “Don’t worry.”

Nabon felt a slight lightning of his mood. With the wizard probably already beginning to feel the Guilt of Sithicus, the giant had no doubt that he would stay with him at least until his eyesight returned. There would be no need to persuade the mist-walker of the necessity of returning to the Wanderer camp, and no chance of Madame Vadoma’s directive failing.

The dark powers were on his side tonight, it seemed, although, as ever, no blessing was pure. Nabon hoped fiercely that the damage done to his eyes was not permanent.

The young human shifted his grip on Nabon’s arm. “Which way should we go?”

“There was a large oak tree with a fallen branch next to it. Walk by it and keeping going straight.”

The mist-walker found the big oak soon enough and stopped to place Nabon’s hands on the bark.

“Here?”

Nabon nodded and leaned against the tree.

“Careful!” the wizard gasped. “There was a tree near here that tried to eat me.”

A dry laugh bubbled up from Nabon’ chest. “I know them. They’re not truly trees, but monsters that conceal themselves in the thickest tangles.”

“So I discovered,” the mage huffed impatiently.

With some of his strength returning, Nabon remember the man calling out for a companion just before the stone giant had found him.

“We should search for your uncle before we leave here.”

The Mistwalker inhaled sharply. “Why do you say that?” The mage’s voice cracked like a whip, and Nabon flinched.

“You were calling for him when I came...weren’t you?” He asked weakly when the human failed to respond.

“Perhaps...I thought I saw him. Before I came here,” he added so quickly that Nabon was certain he was lying, although he saw no reason why the mage would want to.

“So you don’t need to find him?” he asked uncertainly.

“No!” The Mistwalker shouted, then audibly calmed his breath when Nabon flinched again. No,” the human repeated more softly. “He doesn’t need our help. I’m alone here.”

Confused but eager to be on the way, Nabon didn’t argue. The started west from the oak tree, and Nabon thought that they would find the Wanderer camp within the hour. Yet with his eyes compromised, his memory of other landmarks was vague, and it was not long before he lost the way. They might have been moving for twenty minutes or two hours when the human abruptly stopped walking.

“It’s very late,” the mage said. “And I’m exhausted. We need to sleep.”

Nabon wanted to protest, but he was no longer sure the Vistani camp was near and he was beginning to feel the pull of sleep himself.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you much with setting up camp.”

The human released a sharp bark of laughter. “I have nothing to set up a camp with. I’ve only found a tree we can put our backs to.”

“Check it with a stick first.”

“Good idea,” the Mistwalker muttered.

He heard the mage poking around at the trunk of the tree, and when the plant failed to reveal itself as a man-eating monster, the human pulled on Nabon’s arm and exerted guiding pressure until the stone giant sat down and felt the bark of the tree.

“Sleep,” the mage said softly once they were settled, “and make sure to keep your eyes shut even when you wake. The sunlight can damage your eyesight further without you knowing.”

Nabon sighed and nodded his head against the tree. More good news.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been sleeping when the mage began gently shaking his arm.

“Giant. Wake up.”

Nabon’s eyelids flew open and he looked around, hoping to see something, but the same white light greeted him everywhere.

“Close your eyes, I said,” the human insisted. “You’ll certainly go blind like that.”

The giant clenched his eyes shut again, even through the terror that clenched his heart. He deserved to go blind. He had left his people on Oerth, abandoned his duties and spent his careless life on the road when he should have been supporting his clan. That the Mist had taken him was the least of what he had earned.

It was the Guilt talking, but the worst part about the Guilt of Sithicus was that you could know it for what it was and still be wrapped in its power. Everyone was guilty of something. In Soth’s time, the domain had made you forget your past. In the time of Azrael and the thing that lingered in the Rift, the domain made you remember everything.

“It’s overcast,” the wizard said. “There’s very little sunlight, but for you it’s too much.”

“Do you see any change to my eyes?” Nabon asked.

“You will be the first one to notice, not me. Here,” the stranger said, “have some berries.”

He thrust a handful of sticky, half-crushed fruit into Nabon’s hand. The giant devoured the berries without complaint and was hungry enough to hear his stomach rumble when he had finished.

“Do you have any more?”

“Sorry.”

The mage’s voice shook and there was a rough, clattering sound that Nabon belatedly recognized as the man’s teeth knocking together.

“Are you well?” he asked.

There was a short pause and the sound of cloth on cloth. “No, not really. I’m,”—a rough cough tore the air, “I’m cold. My clothes are wet. It’s nearly winter and I don’t even know where I am.”

“You’re in Sithicus.”

“That tells me nothing, except that there must be elves here. Right? The word is Silvanesti.”

Nabon shook his head. “I don’t know what that means. But yes, there are elves in Sithicus. Mostly elves, and some of the Vistani. And other things. Things you don’t want to meet.”

“I’ve already met a few of them. There was a giant that tried to turn me into paste, which was why I attacked you. Sorry about that,” the young man muttered.

“No trouble at all. Or well, I mean, of course I’m not happy about it,” Nabon corrected himself at once, feeling foolish, “But I understand. You’re lucky to have survived these woods, alone in the dark.”

“But you’ve never heard of Silvanesti.”

“No, sorry,” Nabon said. “Nor is anyone else likely to have, to be honest. You’re very far from home.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because, with the exception of the unlucky few born to this place, everyone is far from home. The Vistani travel the Mists from domain to domain, and the rest of us are transported from our own distant worlds to the Demi-Plane of Dread.”

“The Demi-Plane of Dread,” the mage whispered. “So you’re telling me that I’ve travelled to an entirely different plane of existence. That’s why Solinari looks wrong.”

“Does it? It looks exactly the same as it did to me, at least before it disappeared.”

“So it disappeared here too?” the traveller asked, an eager, trembling note in his voice.

“Well, yes, after Lord Soth left.”

“Lord Soth! You must be joking.”

Nabon heard the heavy shifting of wet cloth as the wizard stood up and moved away.

“Wait, where are you going?” the giant called out.

“If you’re going to lie to me, I have no reason to stay.”

“But I haven’t lied to you at all. You can’t leave me here!”

“If you’re saying that you’ve seen Lord Soth, then this must be Krynn. Lord Soth is of Krynn. He can’t possibly be anywhere else.”

“Why not?”

“Because that is the nature of his curse. At the very moment that the fiery mountain fell on Krynn, Soth failed to save his wife and infant son—”

“—from dying in the fire,” Nabon finished. “They turned him and his loyal men into the cursed undead, and for hundreds of years Soth walked the face of his world, spreading terror wherever he went. Yes, I know the story. We all know the story. It is the nature of this land to force us to remember our sins. Always. Soth ruled here for many years, but he is gone now,” Nabon conceded, “And if he still exists on your world, it is perhaps because for your people, he never left. The Mists have incalculable powers to steal souls, and perhaps to put them back once they are no longer amusing to them. I heard tell that Lord Soth failed to respond to the provocations of this place. He was rarely seen by anyone outside of his keep.”

The rustle of cloth told the giant that the stranger had moved back towards him. He felt the body heat of the wizard in front of him and stood still, despite that fey ache inside of him that told him to smash the insolent man down where he stood. When Nabon was a child, he had been raised to believe that everything on the surface of the world was a dream, and killing humans or elves and other surface dwellers had no meaning. In decades since he had left the stone warrens of his people, he had met enough surface dwellers to know that they were as real as he, but the very land of Sithicus told him to surrender to the old notions. Sithicus whispered to save himself from the magician that had taken his sight.

“You tell me Lord Soth was here for years. And did you ever hear of anyone else from my world?”

“The White Rose,” he muttered, pushing back to the violent desire, “But she disappeared when Soth did.”

“I’ve never heard of her. You've never heard of another? A wizard robed in black, with golden skin and hourglass eyes?”

There was an undeniable urgency in the mist-walker’s voice, but Nabon didn’t need to think on it before he shook his head. “No, never.”

The wizard sighed, and a gasp shook his whole body. He coughed and sat back down on the ground.

“I need to get you to a healer,” Nabon said. “You’re very sick.”

When the stranger had recovered, he took a deep breath.

“So are you. We’ll get there together. My name is Palin, by the way,” he said. He reached out with his hand, and when Nabon returned the gesture, the wizard very lightly touched the tips of his finger’s to the stone giant’s. “Palin Majere of Solace, on Krynn.”

Still sightless, Nabon’s gaze wandered to where he knew the clasp of their fingers to be. He wondered what this meant. The Mists never sent anyone here for the good, and good rarely came of meeting a Mistwalker. But then, he had been a Mistwalker himself, and he still tried his best to be a good man in the evil land that held him captive. Despite the unfortunate circumstances of their first meeting, the wizard was no killer or monster.

“And I’m Nabon of Oerth,” he said at last, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake.

*

They stayed in the clearing that night. Nabon hinted at even more terrible dangers lurking in the land by moonlight; with the giant blinded and Palin doubled over in illness, shivering and coughing, travel would be impractical, if not fatal.

Palin was still able to built a fire, and though he considered abstaining, in the end he determined that attracting monsters was still preferable to dying of cold. He hung up his robes on an overhanging branch, and regretted it as he felt even more terrible. The mage sat shivering in his small clothes by the fire, willing the dampness from them, and when he finally put the warm, dry white robes back on he thought that he had never felt such a profound sense of relief.

The cough lingered, though. Palin shook through another round of hacking gasps, then coughed again as he began to laugh.

“What is it?” Nabon asked. “Did you see something?”

“No, no. I just thought of a story my father told me.” He stopped, unwilling to reveal any further details to this man he had just met, but the giant’s blinded eyes could not hide his sudden eagerness.

“Tell me,” Nabon insisted. “There’s precious little to do here. So we often tell stories, especially among the Vistani.”

“Are those your people?”

The giant hesitated, and Palin tensed for a lie, but the grey creature waved a noncommittal, slab-like hand. “Of a sort. I suppose you might say they adopted me.”

“Why is that?” Palin asked. He was curious, but he also wanted to know if the giant would be willing to offer up his stories as freely as he expected from Palin.

The giant blinked several times and waved his fingers in front of his face. “Is it getting lighter out?”

“No.” Although everything in him screamed to be nice, to cooperate, Palin refused to yield to the giant’s equivocating. He had benefited precious little in this life from being nice. Perhaps it was time he tried doing what he really wanted.

Quietly, Nabon sighed. “Oh, very well. I suppose it’s only fair. And it will tell you a great deal about the nature of this land. Certainly, that cannot be emphasized enough.”

Nabon shifted against the tree, visibly discomfited, and Palin felt a flush of shame travel up his cheeks. He had only wanted to test the giant’s trustworthiness, but there should not have been a need. The grey-skinned giant was the only being in this strange place that had not viciously attacked him, had in fact exerted unusual effort to help him, and Palin had repaid him by taking away his sight and treating him like an enemy. It was true that the giant had appeared to be an aggressor in those first moments, but Palin had acted rashly.

The whisper of a notion occurred to the mage that perhaps Nabon had not appeared to be an aggressor at all. Perhaps Palin had known from that very first moment that the giant was no foe, but he had wanted so badly to feel that rush of sorcerous power and ecstasy that he had ignored the signs of benevolence entirely.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Palin said before Nabon could start his story. “I’m the one who should be telling you more.”

He waved away his companion’s protests, although the giant might have continued if a violent cough had not wracked Palin’s chest. Although he was not as physically fit and strong as his brothers had been, Palin had always been healthy, but a night spent running in terror through the woods, dressed in soaking wet robes, had not benefited him.

“My uncle was a great wizard,” Palin began once the cough had subsided. “Perhaps the greatest that ever walked the face of Krynn: Powerful enough to have challenged the gods themselves for supremacy. Even Lord Soth did not dare stand against Raistlin Majere,” he insisted in a voice made feverish with pride, “And he had opportunity enough to try. But I never met my uncle. He died when when he was still a young man, not even having reached his thirtieth year.”

“How did he attain such mastery in so short a time?” Nabon asked when Palin paused for breath.

“That remains a mystery. My father claims that my uncle had access to the knowledge and works of an ancient wizard, which certainly aided his advancement, but his native talent was said to be peerless.”

That was not all that Caramon had said. Palin’s father claimed that Raistlin’s rapid acquisition of power and knowledge had been unnatural, a dark gift from the spirit of the wizard Fistandantilus, who had planned to take over Raistlin’s body and use it as a vehicle of immortality. Palin had no doubt that his father was telling the truth as he saw it, but Caramon’s knowledge of magic, while considerable for a layman, was all second-hand, unschooled, and terribly biased. That Caramon had feared for his twin brother, Palin had always known. It had been present in every fearful glance he had given to his own son. Fear had always coloured Caramon’s view of magic, and he had restricted his loved ones according to his fear.

It was difficult to remember this without bitterness. Caramon had done the best that he could, according to his own best judgment, but his concerns had held Palin back for years.

“Yet as fantastical as his ability was, my uncle’s physical health was just as poor. On my world, all aspiring wizards must undergo a trial of magic and character known as the Test. It’s a poor term for a gauntlet used to determine whether a mage is worthy of living or dying. Yes,” Palin said softly, seeing the startled expression cross the face of his audience, “Failure always means death, or in rare cases, the loss of one’s magic. I think,” he added, even more softly, “I would choose death over that other outcome.”

“What happened to your uncle?” The giant appeared to be engrossed in the tale, and Palin was pleased with his new companion’s interest. His whole life, he had been discouraged from talking about his uncle, from asking questions about him or speaking of the stories he had heard from travellers passing through the Inn of the Last Home.

“My uncle passed the Test, of course, but at the permanent and total loss of his health. What little physical strength he possessed before he entered the Tower of Wayreth, where the Test is always conducted—or nearly always--,” he amended, considering his own Test, “was lost.

“Furthermore, he was physically changed in ways that would make him instantly identifiable among any race on Krynn. His skin, which was once as pale as my own, turned a shimmering metallic gold. His light brown hair turned white, although he was only twenty-one years old, and his blue eyes became golden. The pupils were the most striking feature of all, for their round human shape took on the form of hourglasses. This was not a decorative feature, but a sorcerous transformation, through which every glance my uncle took showed him the flow of time. Everything that he looked upon withered and died even as he watched it. The youngest, freshest maiden appeared as a shriveled crone. A handsome young man was a bent gaffer.”

“But why was this done to him?” the giant gasped.

“The Conclave of Wayreth, lead by the archmage Par-Salian, determined my uncle’s fate. To curb Raistlin’s ambition. To teach him humility. Of course, if they had only treated him with humanity, as one worthy of their time and attention and not just their fear, much might have changed for the better.”

It occurred to Palin that he was speaking not only of Raistlin, but of himself. The Conclave was prone to repeating its errors, even as the gods of Krynn had been inclined to do the same.

“The worst of it, perhaps, was that he was always ill, constantly on the edge of death, and wracked by an awful cough that shook his body and often brought up blood from his lungs.”

He shook his head. “When I was a child, I used to pretend to be him, to be the great Archmage Raistlin Majere, Master of the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas. I would wrap myself up in my mother’s winter coat, which happened to be black, and grab a long stick from the valley to serve as my magic staff. And I would trail after my two brothers, hacking and coughing and speaking in a whisper, while they played at being our father and one of his friends, sword-fighting draconians in the War of the Lance. They always tried to make me play another warrior but, even when I was six years old, I only ever wanted to be one thing.”

Palin wrapped his robes more tightly around his body and tried not to think about how his brothers, especially serious Tanin, had whispered that their parents would be so angry if they caught Palin playing at being Raistlin.

“At least wear the white bed sheet instead, if you have to be a wizard,” Tanin insisted.

“No! Uncle Raistlin wore black.”

Even then, the boys had heard enough whispers in corners to know that their uncle’s story had not ended well. Palin had insisted on continuing his game, but Tanin’s heavy-handed warnings had been all too true. Tika had caught him wrapped up in the black coat one day, throwing sand and chanting a “magic spell” that was so much nonsense. Palin could still remember his mother’s face turning as white the bed sheets that he had rejected in favour of the dark coat.

Tika had forbidden him from playacting at magic again, and the coat had immediately been bleached and re-dyed forest green. Palin could still remember his mother standing out in the snow, the winter sun setting her red curls on fire while she furiously dipped the coat in the bleach, again and again.

“You speak of your uncle in the past. Yet when I found you in the woods you were calling for him. Or was that another uncle?”

Palin drew a long breath. “No. No, I was calling for him. I saw something in the wood that I can’t explain. It was Raistlin, and I saw him as clearly as I see you now. I ran after him, but however fast I ran, I could never catch up. Then he vanished.”

“I see. You must be very careful in Sithicus,” Nabon said. “The things you see here cannot be trusted. It is not like it was back on my world, nor on yours. This place is made of mist and shadows, all-too-real illusions. You must be wary of them. Never chase after the Mists.”

Palin coughed again and wrapped himself more tightly in his robes while he leaned back on a tree and watched the leaves and branches fluttering in the midnight wind. He peered through the foliage, still yearning to see the even darker flutter of black velvet robes and the glint of hourglass eyes.

“Do you think you will be well again soon?” Nabon eventually asked, an anxious note in his voice. “You must help me to see again.”

“Tomorrow perhaps,” Palin sighed.

No further denizens of the Iron Wood disturbed their rest that night, and Nabon woke refreshed, although still entirely blind. The mage reminded him to close his eyes, to protect them from the sun and surrounding foliage, and when Nabon continued to forget, Palin tore a strip from his own robes and bound the giant’s eyes so they would not be damaged.

“But when will I regain my eyesight?” Nabon asked.

An echoing silence broken by a cough answered him, and the giant did not ask again. He gave directions as best he could, but when they failed to stumble across the Vistani camp he could only conclude that they were very far off course.

“Go east,” he said at last. “You will not find the Wanderers, but there is an elven village at the edge of the woods.”

Palin shifted course and walked, but with both the giant and the mage tormented by their respective maladies, they clung to one another like the proverbial babes in the woods. Nabon felt the mage trembling and shivering next to him as they advanced.

“Tell me your story, then,” Palin said. “We have time.”

So the giant told the wizard of how he had been taken by the Mists some thirty years past, pulled from his own world into the strange realm that the learned called a demi-plane, a prison located somewhere between the Prime Material Plane and the Abyss. Although it was peopled largely by the living, Sithicus and its neighbouring domains were governed by strange, unnatural laws and the whims of the dark powers that controlled them.

“Every so often, another being is pulled into this place, seemingly only for the entertainment of the things that govern the Mists. So it was with me. I had left my own people and their customs for the lure of the open road. I sometimes believe that this is a punishment to which I have been condemned for that terrible abandonment of my duties.”

The mage made a small sound, and Nabon instinctively dropped his covered gaze down to the human. “What do you think, good mage?”

“It is possible,” the mage said, with great reluctance in his voice. “It seems that I might have committed some transgression before appearing here.”

“Yes, that is often the way. The Mists never seem to take the entirely innocent, perhaps because they have no dominion over them. Yet it often seems to be the case that the Mistwalkers are goaded to commit some crime before their transportation, perhaps by the whispers of the Mists themselves.”

“Do you truly believe so?” 

Nabon hesitated. Although it was a real possibility, he could not say for certain if the Mists were ultimately responsible for the misdeeds of those they tormented, or if they were merely able to command and control those unfortunate beings who had condemned themselves to this torment. From the keen, seeking tone of the wizard’s voice, Palin had certainly done something sufficiently criminal to land himself in Sithicus. The renewed appearance of Solinari in the night sky also made Nabon think that there was significance to the mage’s arrival.

“I cannot be sure,” he said at last, and tried not to flinch when he heard a harsh exhale from the wizard. “I can only tell you that this is a place of tremendous danger, and that few ever escape it.”

“Lord Soth did.”

“Yes, and before that event, I would have told you that no one ever escapes the Demiplane of Dread. It is that rare. But I was speaking of my own journey. Once I arrived here, and after I had become accustomed to my new station in life, I began to think that I had been blessed rather than cursed, for here in this new land I knew no one and was beholden to neither family nor clan. I could make my own future. So I thought, until I met…Azrael.”

The last he whispered, casting his blind gaze anxiously about, worried to have attracted the attention of that terrible being.

“Who is that?” The mage was astute enough not repeat the name.

“The ruler of this place, after Soth’s departure. Some say its true lord, although I have reason to believe otherwise.”

“And what would the difference be?”

“In this place, the lord and the land are nearly one. The lord can never leave the land, but the land grants the lord extraordinary powers, towering supernatural abilities. Nothing escapes the notice of the lord. But there are other terrors here. The one I mentioned is a creature who has plagued the peoples of this land with murder and torture for as long as Sithicus has had a name. He once served Lord Soth, and he was the one who found me shortly after I arrived. He captured me, and he shattered the legs that had carried me across the world of my birth and beyond.

“I was imprisoned by that foul werebeast for many years. It was only when a creature called the Bloody Cobbler arrived with the soles of murdered Vistani to sew to my legs and feet that I was able to break free from Az...from his prison.

“The gift of the Cobbler gave me back my legs, and more. For the first time since the Mists took me from Oerth, I had a people. I could feel the presence of the Vistani travellers in Sithicus, sense them at a distance, and they knew that I was connected to them as well. It is not the same as it was with my own clan,” Nabon conceded, “They are not giants. And yet in some ways it is better. My own people never understood my need to wander, to keep moving and know that I was satisfied only when I could feel the earth shifting under my feet.”

It was perhaps not the whole truth, but it was close enough, and Nabon was no longer sure if he would return to Oerth again, even if given the chance. As awful as it was, over time Sithicus crept into the blood, into the bones.

“And Azrael?” Palin murmured.

“Azreal is only satisfied when he knows that he has broken his victim in every way. When he has destroyed every reason that makes life worth living. Yet…there is another,” Nabon whispered, “with far greater power.”

“The true lord of the land,” Palin guessed. “Soth’s replacement.”

“Yes. But I cannot speak of it here. Not in the Iron Wood. Not so close.”

“Later then. Where do your feet tell you to go now?”

Having made such a grandiose statement of his connection to the Wanderers, Nabon was afraid to now say that it wasn’t entirely magical, but still required some sight and direction. He was also beginning to wonder if the Wanderers could help them at all. The Vistani people had many secret skills, but they were not especially known for healing.

“East to the elves,” he repeated, “They’ll have healers there.”

“Where did these elves come from if Lord Soth was the first one to rule the realm?”

“They were mistwalkers. Like us.”

“So they were from Krynn. Lord Soth’s world. My world.”

“Very likely. Perhaps you can ask them.”

The day stretched long, and the wizard Palin stopped several times to gather berries, which he shared with Nabon. The giant often lowered his blindfold to check the quality of his vision, and marked no improvement from the night before. He did his best to keep the shiver of fear under control and think as he had trapped in Azrael’s little hut at the quarry.

Just take it one moment at a time. Don’t panic. Don’t despair. Opportunities for improvement will arise.

And they had, Nabon reminded himself. They had.

All at once, the mage pulled on the giant’s arm, hissing, “Get down!”

They fell to the forest floor together. Nabon heard the twanging of arrows arching through the air and covered his head with his hands. They had reached the elven village, he realized, but the elves were not welcoming.

“Please!” he shouted. “We come to ask your aid!”

The sound of arrows gradually stopped before Nabon heard a rustling in the leaves.

“Who are you?” a melodic elven voice called out. “State your name!”

“I am Nabon, a stone giant, once of the world Oerth and now of Sithicus. My companion is human.”

“I am Palin Majere,” Palin offered.

“Stand and let us see your faces,” the elf said. “We won’t welcome any creature of the Iron Wood into our abode.”

Nabon squeezed Palin’s arm, “Can you cast any kind of spell to repel their arrows, if they shoot us again?”

The wizard shifted against him uneasily. “I have not memorized such a spell. My staff may protect us.”

“You are not sure.”

“No,” the wizard muttered, and Nabon heard terrible frustration in the young man’s voice.

“Stand at once!” the elf called again.

Without a choice in the matter, Nabon stumbled to his feet and tensed for a rain of arrows to fall upon him.

Palin stood next to him. “Please,” the mage called out, “my companion has been injured, magically blinded. We came here seeking your help with his malady.”

“How did this happen?” the elf asked, sounding much closer.

“It was a misunderstanding. I struck out thinking that he was an enemy, after I was drawn here from another world. Perhaps you have heard of it? I come from Krynn.”

The elf hissed. “Krynn!”

“Then you know it,” Palin said, an eager note in his voice. “Quenta solari nen heth y mori.”*

“You speak our language!” The elf sounded more than startled.

“Only a few words. One of my father’s closest friends was from Qualinesti.”

“We are not of Qualinesti,” the elf said, with tremendous disdain, “But of the ancient land.”

“You are Silvanesti,” Palin said. “Then you are truly of Krynn.”

“Not for many years. And you are a mage of the White Robes.”

There was a brief pause from the mage. “Yes,” he finally uttered.

“We had not intended to welcome you, but this changes things, wizard of the White Robes. You will come with us.”

“Thank you,” the young man said, very politely, as if his life had not lately been threatened by his welcoming host. He kept a firm grip on Nabon’s arm and led him behind the elves. The stone giant heard the whisper of light-treading feet from more than one direction and knew that they were surrounded. Should the elves choose to shoot again, they would not miss.

Nabon knew that they had arrived at the village when the brush of pine needles and the heavy scent of vegetation dwindled to something more cultivated. He heard people too, but gentle, quiet people, so unlike the sometimes too vibrant, human energy of the Wanderer camp.

“We have arrived,” their elven companion announced. “I will take you to our Speaker.”

“Even here, you call your leader the Speaker?” Palin asked.

“We must have one to speak for us. Here,” the elf sighed, “perhaps more than ever. Come now. The Speaker will hear your case.”

*May the stars shine upon your road

So, it was to be a case, Palin grimaced. The Silvanesti elves were not known for their welcoming natures, but in this terrible place they seemed to have become even more fearful of outsiders. How easily the nightmare of King Lorac had been forgotten!

Yet even these hostile elves pleased Palin. Just knowing that they had come from his world, that they would recognize the names of places that he knew, was buoying, and he found his mood was far lighter than the elves seemed to expect or approve of. The archers shot him with curious frowns when they saw him smile.

Palin kept a tight hold on Nabon’s sleeve as they wound through the elven village. There was nothing like the legendary beauty of the Silvanesti kingdom here, only simple huts, yet they were thatched with layers of woven leaves, and Palin thought that these people must be elves still, even in this dark realm. Unlike the houses of Solace, which were more like refined versions of children’s treehouses, distinct objects perched within the vallenwoods, the elven houses seemed to have grown straight from the wood of the trees. The process did not look entirely natural, and Palin felt a spark of hope that someone else here knew something of magic.

The Speaker was waiting for them in the centre of the village. There was something distinctively regal and authoritative about him, so that Palin knew at once who he was, even if his plain linens were no different than what the other elves wore. He had long dark hair that reminded Palin of the archmage Dalamar, and Palin at once began to ponder what Dalamar was making of a world without magic. Would he continue the search for the mysterious new source of power to which Paladine had alluded, and if so, would it be anything like the magic that they had all known?

Even if it were worth the search, there would be long years of misery and terror ahead for all of Krynn’s mages. Without their power, they were defenceless against the prejudiced and bitter common people of Ansalon, who had always resented the superiority of wizards. 

“I have been told that you are from Krynn,” the Speaker said, drawing Palin’s attention back to the present.

“Yes, Speaker,” Palin said, “Very recently.”

“You have the sound of the south on your tongue.”

“Abanasinia, near the Great Plains.”

The elf hesitated, as though he were trying to picture it on a map. “Yes, near the realm of our cousins.”

“We are rather close to Qualinesti,” Palin said diplomatically. He had the distinct impression that the Speaker had travelled very little before coming to this place. Perhaps he recognized Palin’s accent from traders who had stopped outside of the ancient elven kingdom, exchanging goods at a distance of several dozen miles from the forest they were forbidden to enter.

“What brings you here now?” the Speaker demanded irritably, as though he knew that his lack of knowledge had been noted.

“My companion and I are not well.” He indicated the stone giant whose arm he still held, “We are both in need of tending to by a healer. Have you any clerics?”

“Clerics?” the Speaker scoffed. “You knew as well as I, human, that the clerics disappeared hundreds of years ago, in the time of the Cataclysm.”

The Cataclysm! Palin concealed his astonishment with difficulty. This elf knew nothing of the return of the gods, nor of their subsequent departure, which could only mean that they had left Krynn before the War of the Lance. This would be to his advantage, he realized, for these people would have no idea of the significance of his name. There were said to be some among the Silvanesti who were grateful to Raistlin for the role he had played in the fight against Cyan Bloodbane, but an elf beholden to Paladine might just as well draw back in horror at a relation of one of the darkest mages to ever walk the face of Krynn.

“Much has changed on Krynn,” Palin said, “The true clerics returned to Ansalon many years ago. Were you still there during the War of the Lance, when the dragons of the Dark Queen returned to ravage the land?”

There were dark frowns among the elves, and Palin saw an elf wearing a loose, open robe belted with a white sash lean into the Speaker’s shoulder to mutter in his ear. He knew in a flash that this was a wizard, and likely the primary advisor to the Speaker.

“I swear on the truth of this, as a wizard of Solinari,” Palin insisted. He caught the elven mage’s eye. “And no mage would make that vow lightly.”

The Speaker frowned. “Such vows have little meaning here.”

“But he cannot know that,” the elven wizard said heavily. He spoke as if obligation were dragging the words out of him.

Palin held back the twitch in his face with effort. He did know that. Despite the fullness of the white moon that had guided him through the Iron Wood, he knew that it was not Solinari of Krynn. The god had no place in this realm, and any vows that Palin swore were unlikely to be heard. He took no pleasure in the deception, but the threat these elves posed was undeniable. The best, quickest way to overcome their distrust was through his status as a follower of Solinari.

Though I am no follower of that god any longer. He who abandoned Krynn, who abandoned every mage that pledged to him.

The lump of disappointment in his throat grew larger, like a bitter seed he could not quite manage to swallow, but he buried the knowledge and regarded the elven wizard with gratitude.

“Thank you, Brother,” Palin said.

The elf frowned. “You will soon see that we are not brothers here. Not even in the magic.”

“Nevertheless, he was one of your Order on Krynn,” the Speaker said. “Do you vouch for him?”

A new wave of chills shook Palin and he leaned heavily into Nabon while the other mage considered him. The timing was fortunate, if uncomfortable, as he saw the elf sighed heavily.

“Very well. They are both clearly ill and in no shape to be any kind of threat to us. I will take them back to my house and see that they are treated.”

The Speaker’s hand twitched in acquiescence, and the elves gathered around them lowered their bows, relaxing their battle-ready stances. They dispersed unceremoniously, leaving Palin shivering against the stone giant, who supported him.

“Come with me, human,” the elf mage muttered, not even looking at the giant.

“Come on,” Palin muttered to Nabon, “We can trust him for now.”

“Do you think he can help my eyes?” the giant asked hopefully. He was clearly trying to whisper, but his deep, rumbling voice carried much further than Palin’s ears. Passing elves aimed scornful looks at him.

“We’ll see.”

The truth was that Palin wasn’t certain that anyone could help Nabon. If the giant’s vision were going to return naturally, he thought that it would have started to by now, but according to the giant there had not been even the slightest sign of improvement. And these people had been transported through the Mists before the War of the Lance, meaning they had no knowledge at all of true clerics. Even if there had been one among them, Palin was not convinced that any cleric’s abilities would work here. At the very least, no god was likely to hear the call of their followers. Which was not to say, the mage considered, that no one here would exhibit healing powers. It was possible that the dark powers of the Mists might see fit to grant such abilities, in the same way that they had returned the magic to the Staff of Magius and reignited the fire in Palin’s own blood.

There was something bothering him about that thought, but he couldn’t quite manage to sort it out with the chills running through him. When they reached a green hut growing from the tree, he watched with relief as the elven wizard drew the curtain of green leaves aside.

“You are welcome in my home,” the elf muttered. He didn’t sound terribly welcoming, but Palin didn’t care. He collapsed onto the heap of pillows on the floor and only peripherally took note when Nabon sat cross-legged outside, too large to pass through the door.

“My name is Elidor,” the elf said.

“Palin,” Palin whispered, unsure if he had already given his name. He heard rattling, the sound of things moving about, and then after what might have been a minute—or even an hour—the other mage reappeared.

“Here, drink this,” Elidor said. He handed Palin a large clay mug, and the younger wizard did not waste time examining the contents. The likelihood that he would even know what was in it was slim; he could only assume that the drink was medicinal. And if it were poison, well, he was unlikely to make it out of here on his own anyway.

Palin took the mug and slowly sipped from it until it was entirely empty. A great wave of dizziness swept over him, and he found himself falling towards sleep, but the sleep that came was uneasy, filled with restless nightmares and recollections of people and places lost to him.

“We’re so disappointed in you, Palin,” Caramon’s heavy voice grunted in his ear.

“I always knew that you would follow your uncle’s path,” Tika said coldly.

“Palin, Palin, Palin,” his little sisters chanted, running around him in a circle.

“Nephew,” Raistlin hissed. “Wake up!”

Palin lurched up with a gasp. He was still on the elf’s floor, and sweat soaked his robes until they were almost as wet as they had been after his dip in the river. He felt weak and shaken and very hungry, but he instinctively turned his head, searching for a glimpse of his uncle’s dark robe. There was nothing. The sunlight was bright and clear; it looked to be mid-morning. They had arrived among the elves in the morning, so he must have slept an entire day.

“Nabon!” Palin called. His voice emerged as a bone-dry croak.

The elf, Elidor, slipped through the open door, carrying a clay jug.

“Here, take some water.”

He held out another cup, and Palin dashed the contents down roughly, gasping as the shock of icy-cold water hit his throat.

“The brew has done its job,” Elidor noted. “Your fever broke in the night and the coughing has subsided. Only be careful now. Drink plenty of water, and I will bring you something to eat. Your companion has already been emptying our larders,” the elf added irritably.

“My apologies,” Palin said when he could speak. With the water in his stomach, his throat cleared, and he noticed that he did indeed feel considerably improved from the day before. He was hungry and trembling, but his temperature was normal and he felt no further urge to cough.

The mage sat up with care, leaning against the cushions set by him as he regarded the elf. Now that his head was clear, he was better able to see the Silvanesti. The elf was old, Palin realized, old enough that he could see wrinkles around the watery blue eyes, and to see even that much in an elf meant that he must be hundreds of years old. This elf had very likely seen the Cataclysm first-hand and lived to speak of it. The white sash that he wore meant that he had probably been a mage for many times the life of any head of the White Robes, had been ancient before Dunbar or Par-Salian had been born.

“How did you come to be in this place?” Palin asked.

Elidor hesitated. He raised his hand over another cup and whispered words that Palin could not quite hear but which he recognized, with a thrill of longing, as a heat spell. He wanted so much to ask about the makings of it. He thought that he could almost remember how to do it. It had been in his spellbook once, but it was all lost now.

The mug gave off a whiff as the elf handed it to Palin. “Here, just black tea, and some bread.”

“Where is the tea grown?” This seemed like an unlikely place to harvest tea.

Elidor waved a rough hand through the air. “We trade for it with the Vistani. Gods know where they get it, because I certainly don’t.”

“You speak of the gods as if you believe in them. Were you there before they left?”

“You ask a great many questions, young mage,” Elidor sniffed.

“My apologies, great one,” Palin murmured. He gave the respect the elf was due as an elder, yet he saw no real signs that this was a great wizard. The little hut contained a few things he recognized as components, some polished rocks and dried herbs. Likely there were more things close by in the forest that this mage could use, but an archmagus would have a tremendous number of potential spellcasting ingredients, which Palin did not see. A mage who had lived through the Test was not to be taken lightly, but this not mean that every one who did attained great mastery. This might especially be the case, Palin considered, if this mage primarily served as advisor to the Speaker. In a survivalist position, in which Elidor was required to put his people above personal ambition, focusing on the Art might be truly difficult.

This was what Palin’s head told him, but his heart regarded the elf with scolding contempt. Here in this place where a white moon rode the skies, this errant mage had an opportunity that any wizard on Krynn would give his soul for, and he squandered it at playing court vizier to the mayor of a forest hamlet.

Words that Palin had spoken to his father at his own testing several years ago came roaring back like a house on fire:

“It seems to me that a man must put the magic first!”

The elf did not apprehend Palin's disdain, for he appeared placated by his respectful words. He folded the cup of tea into his hands as if Palin were a small child in need of care.

“Mind you drink all of it,” Elidor chided.

“Yes, sir,” Palin said. He closed his eyes and drank the liquid, which was indeed a soothing and rather dark tea. When he had finished, he set the cup on the floor beside him. The hut’s bottom was composed of woven mats, so that the cup made no sound at all. He started working on the piece of bread, which was typical, light elven fare, although he thought that the grains were different, coarser, than elf bread on Ansalon.

Only once Palin had finished eating did he look at Elidor.

"I have a few questions, sir."

The elf scowled. “If you must."

“I’m afraid I must, sir. If you have been here since before the War of the Lance, which took place during the youth of my own parents, then you have been here for quite some time. Did you never try to leave?”

Elidor released a rather grim chuckle. “Naturally we did. We pursued every avenue, even at great danger to ourselves. Every trinket and so-called planar spell or portal came under scrutiny. There were even times when…” He hesitated.

“Yes?” Palin asked eagerly, sensing something of importance.

“There were even times when the Speaker—another Speaker, our first leader-- asked me to perform magic outside of my purview as a mage of Solinari.”

Palin’s green eyes narrowed. “That would not work.”

“It should not have,” Elidor agreed. “And yet…”

“And yet it did?” The other mage guessed, and knew at once that it was true.

“Yes. It worked. Every time. Nothing held me back from darker spells, until such a time came as I found myself performing works that even a Red Robe would hesitate to cast. And still they worked. No warning ever came from the White moon, but nothing brought us home, and still the Speaker asked more and darker of me. He was determined to return us to Ansalon, but I knew that nothing I did would accomplish the task. It was not the god of Solinari that guided my hand, nor even Lunitari, or Paladine forbid, Nuitari. It was none of these, in fact, for I had realized by that time that we were far beyond the reach of any god of Krynn, and the magic that I could cast was nothing that I had brought with me.”

“Did you notice a difference?” Palin whispered. “When you first came, did you sense anything different about the magic?”

Elidor looked down into his hands and slowly shook his head. “I can no longer be sure. Perhaps I did. I quarrelled with the Speaker. Our people, who had seen him increasingly slide into the path of darkness, supported me. We drove him into the forest, there to be devoured by the terrible things that roam the night. The next day we found what was left of him, ripped to pieces, but not for food, leaving only the bones, such as a wolf might do, but for sport. It was Azrael, I am sure of it. After that time, I have performed only as little magic as I must to defend our position here.”

Palin grimaced and ran his hand along the Staff of Magius. Despite the vindication of his suspicions that Elidor was barely practicing, he was more disturbed by the old elf’s tale than he cared to consider.

“My companion the stone giant said that you were here when Lord Soth was still the ruler of this place.”

“Yes…Soth,” the other mage said, with great disapproval and more than a touch of fear. “It is true that we seem to have been drawn to this place to serve as his tormentors. Although we arrived before him, seemingly in preparation for his arrival, to remind him always of his sins against that elf maid that dared to wed him. And yet, I am not sure if the curse of this place had the effect that…someone was hoping for. Soth appeared to take little notice of any of us. He eventually disappeared back into the Mists. There were those who said they saw him go, although I was not one of them.”

“So there is a way back to Krynn?”

Elidor shrugged. “That is not what I said. Perhaps there is, perhaps there isn’t. I only know that by every report the death knight no longer haunts the land. That there was one sent to replace him is proof enough of that.”

“Azrael,” Palin mused, watching Elidor closely. Azrael was not the one he had been told was the true lord of the land, but he wondered if the elf would tell him the same.

“Azrael fancies himself king, it is true,” Elidor said slowly.

“But?” Palin prompted.

“But there is another, one heard screaming in the night from the Great Canyon. That was where Nedragaard Keep once stood—a replica in almost every way of the death knight’s keep on Krynn. When Soth left, much of it fell into the rift. And something else grew strong there as well.”

“Will you tell me?” Palin asked, dropping his voice.

The older mage hesitated. “No,” he said finally, “Only avoid that place.”

“And if I must go there? You said that Soth disappeared. Was it near his keep? What if that is the only place where the planes can be traversed?”

Elidor scowled. “I told you that it can’t be done!”

“But Soth did it,” Palin insisted.

“That he left is no proof of anything. Perhaps the powers in the Mists destroyed him because they tired of his recalcitrance, of his sitting on his dark throne year after year, failing to entertain them. It is better to resign yourself to this place than to try to reach beyond and in doing so sully your soul every day with magics that even a damned Black Robe would hesitate to touch! Do not think for a moment that anyone can help you here. All that dwell in Sithicus grow more corrupt with each moment passing, and we are no exception! Poor fool,” Elidor said bitterly, “You should never have come.”

“I have heard that no one who comes here is innocent,” Palin whispered fiercely.

“Then you have heard more than a day’s travel in the dark dimension yields to most. Yes, we were no innocents who came here. Our own darkness brought us to this place. And if you were brought here by the Mists, then you must have indulged some darkness of your own.”

“Come with me,” Palin insisted. “Come with me and find the way to return to our home.”

Elidor looked at him with bleak disbelief. “Have you heard nothing?”

Screams interrupted their discourse, and both mages looked to the doorway of the hut. A pounding along the earth announced the coming of Nabon only moments before he poked his head and shoulders through the door. His eyes were clear and bright.

“You healed him!” Palin gasped.

“Only a remove curse.”

“But—"

“You must both come with me now!” Nabon gasped. “Azrael is in the village, killing all who have not already fled.”

Palin leaped from the floor to seize Elidor’s hand, tugging him towards the door.

“But my laboratory,” Elidor insisted, “My garden!”

“Bring your spellbooks,” Palin gasped. “Quickly!”

The elf opened up a wooden trunk and pulled a pack from it. There were four different books inside, hardly a treasure trove compared to the riches that Palin had witnessed in the Tower of Palanthas, but worth more than all the spellbooks of Raistlin Majere when his nephew did not have even one to his name. Palin itched to take Elidor’s books in his hands, to caress them and revel in their miracle. He restrained the impulse only with the knowledge that to touch another wizard’s book was to invite an attack, and that to open one without great study was to risk the loss of one’s mind.

“Come! Come!” Nabon insisted. Only ten seconds perhaps had passed since his arrival, yet Palin could feel the terror in the giant’s body, and the screams from the elves had not stopped, only grown louder.

Elidor ran to the door, pack in hand, and Palin and the stone giant pulled him along urgently.

“Bring me the boy who came out of the Mists,” Palin heard a gravelly voice shout. He wasted no time in any feeling of insult for being called a boy. Nor would he allow it to provoke him.

“Bring him now or you all die!”

“You will kill us all anyway!” spat an elf that Palin did not know.

“Maybe,” the deep voice turned crafty. “Maybe not. But if you don’t bring him, you’ll die for certain. And I won’t be quick about it.”

“He is in the house of the wizard!” Palin recognized the voice as belonging to the Speaker. So much for the goodness of the elves.

“We must go back!” Elidor insisted. “They will all be killed.”

“Do you have the means to prevent it?” Palin snapped. “Have you memorized any spell more powerful than one to make your plants grow faster or clean the floor of your hut?”

“I must try!”

“Going back will only mean your death. Pick him up!” Desperate enough to forget the uncertainty that so often held him back, Palin commanded Nabon, and the stone giant responded, reaching down to hoist the elf onto his back. The old wizard banged on the stone giant’s back but might as well have been banging on stone itself. His light, thin fists made no mark, and the giant failed entirely to react. He ran through the woods without hesitation, and Palin followed behind as quickly as he could. He heard the screams behind him in the village for a long time, and then, abruptly, nothing.

The mage grimaced. He was without blame in the deaths of the elves. If he had tried to save them, he would already be dead. But he could not block out the awful voice that said he had as good as murdered them himself, and that the only reason that he hadn’t tried to save the elven village was the magic that burned once more in his veins, and the chance for a true wizard’s education now that he had found one who might be a teacher.

“It’s not true,” Palin whispered. “I would have tried, but there was nothing to be done. There was nothing to be done.”

Despite the open daylight and how clear and shadowless the woods appeared, Palin still thought that he could see the edge of a black robe somewhere up ahead, flapping in the wind, while he heard the distant, mocking whisper of Raistlin’s voice:

Liar, Nephew. Liar.

The old elf would not stop weeping. Nabon did his best to ignore it, but the temporary loss of his vision seemed to have sharpened his ears. He had quickly become accustomed to paying close attention to even the tiniest of sounds, and even now the habit continued unabated. It did not help that the elf had been slung over his shoulder for several miles already.

“Are you certain you cannot cast a spell on Azrael?" Nabon asked Palin. "He is a werebeast. Running will not stop his nose from finding us.”

Trotting by his side and gasping for breath, the human mage shook his head mutely.

“Let me down, beast,” the elf over Nabon’s shoulder rasped.

Nabon cast a glance at Palin, who nodded wearily and waved his hand. The giant set Elidor on the ground and watched as he sought to recover his balance. Slowly, the elf's hands wiped away the tears that had left long streaks across the thin skin of his face.

“If you have something, young mage,” the elf said at last, “It would be better for us all to make a stand now. The giant is correct—Azrael will find us.”

Palin bit his thin lip and shook his head. “I cannot. You don’t understand the situation.”

“There’s no time to explain anything right now,” Elidor said. “I have a few cantrips in mind, but nothing of sufficient power to do more than slow the beast down.”

“Have you anything to throw him off of our trail? An air spell to send our scent in the wrong direction, perhaps?”

Elidor brightened. “I do have a bit of a gust spell I use for sweeping the floor. Yes, that might work.”

The elf whispered a few syllables in a language that Nabon did not understand and could not seem to follow. Listening to it, it has as if cotton were stuffed in his ears. The syllables were distant and impossible to process, but the effect became clear when a wind rose, seemingly from nowhere, swept around them, and gusted off through the wood. Nabon shivered, and the three companions stood very still.

“There’s no way of knowing if he will follow it,” Elidor murmured. “It would be best if we were off at once.”

Nabon was no longer sure of his mission. Madame Vadoma had commanded him to bring the Mistwalker from the woods, but she had not been completely clear about what to do once he had him. He wondered if he should be encouraging the two mages to seek out the Canyon, thus ending their presence in Sithicus one way or another, or if he should bring them directly to the Vistani camp. 

“Where are we going?” he rumbled, deciding to leave the matter in the hands of his charges, at least for the time being. 

He saw the human wizard hesitate before his expression firmed. “I must go to the keep of Lord Soth. I feel strongly that there are answers there, and a way back to Krynn, if there is one. Will you come with me?”

“It is a place of madness and terror,” Elidor said, “and you are unlikely to emerge alive, or sane if you should be some chance survive the ordeal.”

“But it is an avenue that you never pursued. You said that you tried every other possible means of escaping.”

The old elf passed a hand over his face. “Yes. In Soth’s time, of course we could never dare it, and after there were other things in the chasm. Yet you are correct that it is the only place where a portal or some other means of accessing the prime material plane might be found. Even if such a thing did not take us to Krynn, it would at least free us from Sithicus.”

“Then it’s decided,” Palin said, softly. “Will you lead us there?”

Elidor sighed and firmed his shoulders. “There’s no reason not to, now. I’ve lost my companions, my home for these past decades. If I die in the quest for Silvanesti, there’s no sorrow in it. I’ve lived longer than most.”

The elf took muster of the air, checked the direction of the sun through the trees, and started south-west. Nabon scanned the air for any sound of Azrael’s approach, but the elf’s trick with the wind seemed to have worked, and he caught no hint of the werebadger.

They kept a slow pace for their leader, whose gait was not strong, and the sunlight grew long through the trees. No one spoke, each member of the party lost in his own thoughts. Nabon considered what he might do at the end of the journey. If there were indeed a portal in Nedragaard Keep, would he have the nerve to step through it after so many years? Sithicus was an awful, hateful place to live, but he was used to it, and he had friends here. If he returned to Oerth, he would be forced to start over again, and he was not a young giant.

“We should stop,” Palin said after perhaps two hours had passed. “We need to find food, and rest.”

Elidor sagged against a tall maple tree. Over the elder elf’s long silver hair, orange and yellow leaves shifted in the afternoon sun and blazed like tiny fires.

“Yes, we still have some time to travel, and we should keep our strength for the journey into the Canyon.”

Nabon set a snare for a rabbit and quickly had one in hand, while Palin collected berries. Elidor searched for a stream and failed to find one, but the juice in the berries and the fat of the roasted rabbit was almost sufficient to quench their thirst.

“We’ll be coming upon the Knellin River soon enough,” Nabon said. “Not to worry.”

“Sithicus is not large,” Elidor agreed, warming to the giant a bit. “It’s no more than a day’s journey from north to south and perhaps two day’s walk from west to east.”

“Except for the Canyon, I’ve probably crossed every foot of this land,” Nabon said. “Some feet more often than others.”

“I think you’ll need to take over as guide soon enough. It has been several years since I've left the village.”

Palin was quiet, leaning over their small fire for warmth and staring into the flames.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go,” the human said unexpectedly.

Elidor’s eyebrows rose. “All this fuss to go and now you’ve changed your mind.”

“The danger is great. Perhaps I didn’t understand before.”

“Perhaps,” the elf said. There was a clear trace of doubt in his face, and he studied the human closely. “But there’s nothing for me here now. Even if you change your mind, I believe I will still try to find my way back to Krynn. I have children and grandchildren in Silvanesti, and it is a peaceful, lovely land. It is worth the risk of trying.”

A flicker of some indefinable emotion passed over Palin’s face. “I suppose you’re right.”

A light chirping sound attracted Nabon’s attention. A glance up in then maples revealed the little scarlet bodies of the vista chiri peering down at them through the leaves.

“Look,” he whispered. “The Vistani must be near.”

“Perhaps we should leave,” Elidor said.

Nabon hesitated, while the chirping sounds grew more numerous. He wondered why he had never noticed it before. A new sound joined the birds, the tinkling of bells, and one of the Wanderers stepped through the trees.

“Mylo!” Nabon beamed. A rush of relief went through him; the decision had been taken from him.

“Friend Giant.” The Wandered nodded but remained grave-faced. “Madame Vadoma requests your company, and that of your companions.”

“How did she know?” He grimaced at once. Of course she knew. She always knew.

The Wanderer seemed to think the same, because his brow rose sceptically.  “She is waiting for you.”

Nabon waved his companions to their feet. “It’s best not to keep Madam waiting.”

“Who is she?” Palin whispered as they fell in step behind Mylo.

“The leader of the Wanderers, the Vistani tribe in this country. She is not to be trifled with.”

“Is she a mage?” Palin asked eagerly.

“Perhaps. I’m not certain what the nature of her power is. Perhaps she is a seer. I’ve also seen her gather information from animals. She often seems to know things that others do not. But be wary,” Nabon said, dropping his voice to a whisper. “This is not the course that the Wanderers had planned to take, and I cannot help but feel that we are the reason for their change in direction.”

Palin heard the Wanderers before he saw them. Though his thoughts had kept him heavily occupied throughout the course of the day, he could not help by hear the sound of tinkling bells, whinnying horses and creaking wagons. Men and women chatted and laughed, and someone was playing a flute, providing a jaunty rhythm for setting up camp.

Almost immediately, one of the women in the camp noted their approach. She stood up from her task and stretched her back before walking toward them with a light, easy step. Like the other women here, Palin noted that she wore a white blouse and a long, colourful skirt. Thin gold bangles that he thought might be real flashed from her wrists and ears.

“Mylo!” she called. “You’ve brought back our friend.”

“Madame Vadoma requested their presence,” Mylo said. “She is waiting for them.”

“Indeed.” The woman’s gaze swept over the small group, lingering appreciatively on Palin. The thought might have pleased him before the War, before everything, but now he considered the matter of attraction with an impatience that surprised even himself. He had far more important things on his mind. 

Perhaps sensing his disinterest, the Vistani girl shrugged and waved the little group forward. “Off you go then.”

Mylo led them onward to the farthest and largest of the caravans. The sides were decorated with intricate paintings, rendered by a skilled hand, of images both fair and foul. Some pictures were difficult to regard for long—skulls twisted into grimaces of raw fear—and Palin thought that there was a touch of magic about them, perhaps some kind of warding spell.

The Vistani knocked on the caravan door, which creaked open alarmingly not a second later. The interior of the wagon was thick with shadows, but the voice that called from inside was unmistakably a woman’s.

“Enter, travellers.”

It had the sound of a dare, and Palin did not shirk from it. Their guide retreated from the caravan, leaving Palin to take the steps the steps alone, although he heard Elidor enter a moment later behind him. From outside, Nabon muttered that he would wait for them, for he was far too large to breach the door.

Once within, Palin found a soft light that touched every corner. It was undoubtedly magical in nature, for there were no candles anywhere. At a table in the caravan's far end, seated at a low table, Palin saw a woman of indeterminate age. She was dressed like the other women of the camp, but her jewelry was heavier and even more valuable, the bangles thicker and the earrings longer. Her eyes were heavily lined with smoky kohl, and though she was undoubtedly human, there was something of the supernatural that hung about her. Palin knew at once that she was not a mage, but neither was she ordinary. The blood of seers ran in Palin’s line, and he thought that perhaps she was one of the same, for there was something familiar about her strangeness. He offered her a bow, lower even than he had offered to Elidor, and felt the elf do the same beside him, if perhaps more stiffly.

“So, you have arrived,” the woman said, looking them over critically. “I am Madame Vadoma, who leads here.”

Palin bowed again. “An honour. I am Palin Majere of Krynn.”

“Elidor, also once of Krynn, more recently of Sithicus.”

“Yes. I know you, Elidor, although we have not met before. Sithicus is in your blood now.”

A fearful little gasp escaped the elf. “I hope not for much longer.”

“Hmm. We shall see. And you...young wizard. You have only just arrived here, but already the Mists are thick around you. They seek something more from you than just window dressing, such as the elves provide in this realm.”

Palin felt Elidor twitch indignantly beside him, but the elf kept silent. There was something about Vadoma that discouraged excessive emoting.

“I do not know that the powers of this place seek from me, Madame,” Palin confessed. “I seek a way to return to my home.”

“Indeed. But you left your home because it was no longer welcoming, didn’t you?”

She saw his twitch of surprise and laughed. “It is no mystery, Palin Majere. No one comes to this realm who is happy. And the Mists do not claim anyone who longs in their heart to stay in their own world. Tell me, what is it that you were seeking there?”

The words came rushing from Palin as if of their own volition.

“The magic. It is gone from Krynn. The gods have abandoned us, but truly. All of the gods, even the gods of magic who stayed after the last Cataclysm.”

Elidor gasped. “So this is why you could not cast a spell.”

Palin nodded reluctantly. “It has been many months since I have felt even the slightest spark of the Art. All of my spells are gone from me. Every artifact of magic is dead, empty wood or stone. Solinari fell from the sky, replaced by a dull yellow moon. Only after coming here did I feel the revival of the Gift, and even now I must relearn all of my incantations from the beginning, if that is possible.”

“That is why you insisted I take my spellbooks with me,” the elf standing next to him accused. “Even when we were fleeing from death on four legs.”

“It was not only for myself,” Palin denied hotly. “You will need them as well if we are to survive.”

“But it was also for yourself. So like a human,” Elidor sneered. “Selfish.”

Palin clenched his hands and flushed, turning away. Guilt nagged at him, for he knew that the elderly wizard was correct. He had acted more like a Red this day than a White.

“Come now,” Madame Vadoma soothed. “There is no shame is protecting oneself. Sit here, both of you. I will do a reading for the young one, for his destiny may also be yours, old one.”

This did not appear to please Elidor, who scowled, but accepted the invitation to sit purely out of need. The journey had taken its toll on his elderly body, for his hands shook as he accepted a cup of tea from the Vistani leader.

Palin too, sat at her table. When the tea slipped into his hands, it began to warm him at once, and he sipped at it gratefully.

“When you have finished the tea, set it on the table,” Vadoma said.

She soon picked up Elidor’s empty cup and look into it, frowning.

“There is darkness ahead for you. You may find what you are searching for, but only by forsaking what you believe to be your duty. But do what is right, and you will find your death.”

Elidor paled but bowed his head. “My thanks for the insight, Madame.”

Next she looked into Palin’s cup. “Darkness for you as well, young one. Follow your desire and you will find the end of all that you were. But not your death. Something worse, perhaps.”

Palin bit his lip and nodded. “My thanks.”

“And now for the cards.”

The Vistani drew a large deck of handpainted cards from a silk bag. Each card depicted a vivid scene of some significance. Palin had never seen their like, but he knew at once that they must be a divining tool.

“Shuffle the deck and pick six cards.”

Palin took the deck from Vadoma’s hands and shuffled them until they were suffused with the warmth of his grip. He knew to pick a card out, perhaps some remnant of his own seer’s legacy alerting him of when to stop shuffling. He removed six cards and handed them back to reader from one hand, the rest of the deck in his other.

“Very good. You have something of the gift, I see,” Vadoma said, a hint of approval in her voice.

“My grandmother was a seer. Untrained. She died of the Gift, wracked by seizures and visions she could not control.”

Vadoma’s enigmatic expression softened. “That is a true shame. I am sorry.”

Palin shrugged helplessly. “I never knew her.”

“No, but the loss dogs your line.”

That was the truth, with nothing left to say of it, and Palin watched in silence as Vadoma arranged five cards in a cross, with one left to the side. This she turned over first. It depicted a white-robed man with a star in full burst behind him.

“The querent. The Magician, reversed. Entirely fitting. You seek the power you lost. Now, the reading.”

She turned over the cards one at a time, then sat looking at them as the colour drained from her brown cheeks.

“Very bad,” she said at last. “Whatever quest you have in mind you should abandon at once.”

Palin immediately shook his head. “I need to know what’s happening in this place. For that, I must go to Soth’s keep in the chasm.”

“So, it is that. You believe there will be answers there, but you will find only ruin. Look here,” she pointed to a card that depicted a building remarkably similar to the High Tower of Sorcery in Palanthas. A bolt of lightning from the heavens had shattered it, sending black pieces of marble flying through the air.

“The Tower. A bad sign at any time, but surrounded by these cards, disastrous. Here, Death. Usually a card of transformation, but inverted here, transformation of the worst kind. Something terrible will happen to you in Soth's keep. I warn you against it. If you choose to pursue the matter, it is on your head.”

“I must go to with this young man,” Elidor said suddenly. “It is perhaps my only way back to Krynn.”

Madame Vadoma scoffed. “You have lived here long enough to know better. Perhaps there is a portal there, but in all likelihood you will never reach it. The dark powers will test you and you will fail.”

“I will take my chances. My people here are gone, scattered or dead. I have only the hope of returning to my family.”

Madame Vadoma nodded, slowly gathering up her cards. “I will not do a reading for you, ancient one. I fear it will only darken my day further. You may both stop here for as long as you wish, to rest and refuel. You are also welcome to join us on our travels, for a wizard or two would be of great use to us. Have a care before you refuse, for such an offer is rare indeed and will not be extended twice.”

Palin considered the offer carefully. It was true that there was nothing left for him on Krynn, that his reckless act in the woods had ruined his future, and the hollow left behind by his lost magic could not be filled by anything in Solace or anywhere else on Ansalon now.

“I cannot stay,” Elidor said firmly. “I am determined. I will either return to Krynn or die in the attempt. You are welcome to do as you wish, young mage, but my spellbooks are coming with me.”

Palin grimaced. The only source of familiar magic in this whole cursed realm was in those books. If Elidor left, he must go with him, to the edge of the portal, if nothing else. “Very well. I will come with you, Ancient One, if only you will teach me.”

“Hm. This is what you had in mind all along, no doubt. Oh, very well,” the elf scoffed at Palin’s bleak expression. “But only because we will need all of the defences we can muster on this journey.”

The elf stood and offered a last bow to Vadoma. “My thanks for your kind offer, Madame, but I am afraid I must refuse.”

“If that is your choice. My people will refill your supplies and send you on your way.”

Palin made to follow the older wizard, but Vadoma caught his sleeve as he passed.

“A moment, young mage.”

She waited until Elidor had left, then regarded Palin gravely. “The elf’s powers are used up. He is expendable and will likely die on this quest. You are the one that the dark powers want, Palin Majere. They seek to make something of you. Beware the land. Once you have been changed by it, there is no going back.”

Palin offered a shaky nod and gently tugged his sleeve loose.

“If you return--and you are still human,” she added lightly, “The offer to join us stands.”

Palin stumbled from Madame Vadoma’s caravan and into improbable sunlight. To the wizard’s dazzled senses, it seemed as if hours had gone by, yet from the position of the sun it could be no later than four o’clock in the afternoon. Nabon still stood by the caravan with Elidor next to him, and several Vistani were chatting with them about the conditions on the road. It seemed that they already knew of Madame Vadoma’s generous offer to refill their supplies, for one of the women was stuffing Elidor’s pack with waybread, while the men joked and laughed.

Palin grimaced at the light sound. He felt in his bones every minute of his harrowing journey, and it seemed to him offensive that these people should find cause for merriment when he had none.

“Perhaps we should stay for the night,” the mage said. “I would appreciate the chance to rest and learn something before we undertake this journey.”

Elidor scowled, but the Vistani seemed to anticipate this request, for they swept both mages away to a spare tent. Nabon refrained, saying that he wanted to catch up with friends.

“I know that you don’t like this; that you aren’t fond of me,” Palin said to Elidor once they were seated inside the colourful silk shelter. “But you need to rest, and I need some means of defending myself in this awful place.”

“And what of that?” Elidor asked, gesturing toward the floor next to Palin, where he had set the Staff of Magius.

Instinctively, Palin's hand dropped down to caress the staff. “It isn’t reliable. It blinded Nabon, but then did nothing more. I must recover the use of my spellcasting abilities. The Staff of Magius will not heed the commands of half a wizard.”

“The Staff of Magius, is it?” Elidor lifted his fine brow. “Wherever did you come by such a thing?” For the moment, his interest in the art seemed stronger than his contempt for Palin.

“My uncle gave it to me. He was the last holder of the staff.”

“Indeed? And who was your uncle?”

Palin hesitated. “After your time, perhaps. He was a Red Robe,” the younger mage added hastily.

Elidor scoffed. “Next thing to a Black. At least you took to the White, whatever your other failings. But I can see you’re impatient, young one. Let us study, then.”

Palin leaned in eagerly as the elf removed the first of the spellbooks from his saddle bag. The book was obviously old, worn, each page handled repeatedly and with care. The language of Krynn’s magic shimmered from the words penned on each leaf.  Palin reached out a longing hand to touch the book, only to pull back at the last moment, knowing that even the spells of a weak wizard would be woven with deadly wards.

“The magic still works,” he breathed. “I can see it. And you’re sure you never noticed a difference when you crossed over? The magic never left you for a moment?”

“Never,” the elf swore. “There was no disruption. The powers of the Mist mimicked the gifts of Solinari perfectly, for a time, until the spells began to darken, as I have told you. And on Krynn? Is it truly as you said to her? Even the gods of magic have departed?”

“Yes,” Palin said, low-voiced. “Our world has been shattered by a second Cataclysm. All of Krynn’s gods were driven away by an even older, more elemental force. They took all of their blessings with them. And it was not until the departure of Solinari that I realized that we wizards are little more than clerics ourselves. Our magic is entirely dependent on the gifts of the three moons. Without them, I had nothing. We had nothing.”

“Astonishing,” Elidor whispered, running his hands over the words of magic engraved into his book.

“Are you not worried to leave it all behind?” Palin asked. “Every mage on Ansalon is searching for some means of recovering their magic now. Many would kill for the spellbook in your hands, if they knew it would work.”

“Young man,” the old elf said sternly, “If this place has taught me nothing else, it is that some things are worth more than magic. I am eager to leave it behind me forever.”

Although Palin instinctively knew that Elidor meant he was eager to leave Sithicus, he could not help but scoff at the old mage. To think that such a one as this had passed the Test, which was meant to weed out anyone for whom the magic meant less than everything.

Perhaps his contempt was too obvious, for Elidor offered him a sad smile.

“I see you hate that,” the elf said softly. “Perhaps you will learn better before this place consumes you. Now let us begin.”

And although Palin had successfully cast war spells from the book of Magius himself, he started here as he had when he was a child in Solace.

At the beginning. 

By late evening, Palin had recovered his understanding of the basic spellforms and quickly memorized several cantrips.

Elidor appeared reluctantly impressed with his prowess.  “If you continue to progress steadily, we can look at some proper first level spells tomorrow. For now, we should rest.”

The desire to continue studying itched inside of Palin, but he thought it best to obey the older wizard, at least for now. Ultimately, he left the tent to avoid the temptation of pressing Elidor for more, but regretted his decision as he stepped into the camp, where the isolation and quiet vanished like a popped soap bubble. The braying of animals, sounds of cooking fires, shouts, and laughter amid the tuning of instruments grated on Palin like chalk on the blackboard of the mageschool he had once attended in Solace.

Thinking of his early, lackluster tutelage darkened Palin’s mood further, and he determined to return to the tent at once and sleep early. The mage turned back, only to be intercepted by Nabon, who strode across the camp to firmly press of a cup of steaming soup into his hand.

“Friend Palin! Let me introduce me to some of my companions.”

Palin stammered an excuse that the giant ignored as he urged the mage across the grassy clearing to the cook fire. There he was given bread and meat and introduced to a number of persons whose names and faces all ran into one vague blur of humanity, exhausting Palin and making him feel paradoxically more isolated. He did his best to respond to their friendliness, but despite his best efforts he felt that that his face and voice were stiff and disinterested.

The mage excused himself as quickly as courtesy allowed and, after perhaps an hour, returned to his tent. Inside, Elidor already lay sleeping. Palin slipped into the second bedroll as darkness fell over the camp, but sleep eluded him as a splash of blood crossed his inner eye and he saw the healer, Aldo Cassian, fall into the field by Crystalmere Lake with his brains leaking out of the back of his head. Palin rolled on his side and clutched his knees to his chest as he squeezed his eyes firmly shut. He did his best to calm his mind with the meditation techniques taught to every novice mage on Ansalon, but sleep eluded him for a long time.

A weak yellow dawn peered over the trees to wake Palin from his fitful slumber. The mage’s muscles trembled with cold and his eyelids were heavy; he almost felt it would have been better had he never slept at all. Stumbling outside, he found a small bowl of water had been placed by his tent, along with a washcloth. After a brief stop in the woods to relieve himself, Palin used the water to wash his hands and wipe the sleep from his face, by which time Elidor had woken to do the same.

Nabon appeared a few moments later to collect them for breakfast with their hosts. Madame Vadoma failed to make another appearance, but the other Vistani treated them generously, pressing more supplies on them before bidding them farewell.

“The Vistani are not usually so welcoming to outsiders,” Nabon told his companions as they walked down the forest path. “They must be truly impressed with you.”

“Perhaps,” Palin said. He had little desire to discuss all that Madame Vadoma had told him.

 “We are actually very close to the Knellin River,” Nabon said, when Palin failed to fill the silence. “We will have reach the bridge to cross it, which is a bit out of our way, due slightly north, but after that it will not be long to the Chasm. Perhaps six hours of walking altogether, if we are not interrupted by other dangers.”

Six hours did not seem long enough for Palin to prepare himself for a confrontation with powers of supernatural strength and significance. He was beginning to regret his decision to seek the Chasm. Surely there must be some other way to continue his studies than to follow Elidor into certain doom.

A rough wind swept through the woods and Palin shivered, suddenly beset with the knowledge that there were no other Krynnish wizards here to learn from. He might stay in Sithicus for the rest of his life, with his Gift fully alive, and still learn nothing of the art. If he were to regain his powers and improve them, it must be through the books in Elidor’s pack.

A flicker of something black drew his attention. Palin’s gaze leaped hopefully to it and saw what he had longed for: his uncle’s dark robes and golden face between the trees. Raistlin held one long, slim finger to his lips and waved Palin forward with the other hand. At once, Palin turned into the woods, only to feel someone grasp the collar of his robes, tugging him back onto the well-trod path.

“What are you doing, friend Palin?” Nabon asked urgently. “This is not the way.”

“I saw him again! My uncle. I think something is wrong. He wants us to follow him west, not north.”

“The bridge is north. Do not be misled by the illusions of this place.”

Palin shook his head as he was seized by a sense of urgency. “Perhaps there is a better path in that direction. We should follow him.”

“Did this uncle of yours come here with you?” Elidor asked uneasily. “The Red Robe?”

“No. He’s dead. But not exactly. I can explain it later. I really think that we should go now.”

Raistlin’s shadow waved more urgently, and Palin determined to follow him, even if he were forced to leave his companions behind. He was certain that his uncle would not mislead him. He was even more certain that this was truly Raistlin, for who else could traverse the planes to find him here in this realm of mist and shadows? If anyone were able do it, it would be Raistlin Majere, the greatest mage to ever walk the face of Krynn.

Heedless of the protests of his companions, Palin rushed into the trees, chasing after the distant shade. He was vindicated when he heard the sound of something vicious and hungry growling from far behind him. Palin spared a brief glance and was relieved to see that Nabon and Elidor had started in pursuit. The old elf did not last long before collapsing, but Nabon merely scooped him up, and they continued stampeding across the forest floor until the ravenous snarls had faded.

“It was Azrael,” Elidor gasped as they slowed to a stop. Impatiently, he struggled loose from Nabon’s grasp, dusting off his robes as he stood. “I would know that voice anywhere, but I don’t know how he didn’t pick up our trail.”

“I told you it was Raistlin. I’m sure of it,” Palin swore. “He led us out of Azrael’s way and covered the scent and sound of our passage.” He looked around the woods but saw no hint of his uncle’s distinctive figure. The Black Robe seemed to have melted away.

“Perhaps,” Elidor considered, but there was a hint of doubt in his voice, and Nabon was shaking his head and looking at Palin with great, sad eyes. It was clear that they did not believe him.

Palin scowled. “It doesn’t matter. We can circle back around and approach the river from the south, then walk along it until we reach the bridge. Or there’ll be a boat somewhere along the way.” His experiences with “Dougan Redhammer” had not increased Palin’s fondness for boats, but he would do what was necessary to fulfil Elidor’s quest and gain his favour.

“There is a boat sometimes,” Nabon conceded. “Another group of elves lives to the south of the river, and they have their own craft. They will occasionally allow passage, if you have something interesting to trade with.”

“Then it’s decided,” Palin said. He did his best to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. And although he fixed his eyes directly head, he could not help but hope that he might see Raistlin again.

Palin and his companions walked for perhaps two hours before the sound of running water lured them out of the woods and on to the bank of the Knellin. Though he had secretly hoped for an easy passage, the young mage saw at once that the river was far too wide to swim and too deep to wade. Rough rapids churned its length and a heavy cloud of mist hovered over its expanse. The opposite bank appeared distant and vague, obscured by ominous black clouds.

“Impressive, is it not?” Nabon rumbled.

“That’s one way of putting it,” the young mage said glumly. He must have sounded depressed indeed, for even aloof Elidor offered a vague, comforting pat on Palin’s arm.

“We shall persevere,” the elf said.

“Perhaps we should rest here,” Palin suggested, “To take lunch and decide our direction.”

They settled in with their waybread and threw some herbs into cups of water. Elidor applied a mild heating spell, with the resulting concoction something marginally more appealing than the leather-flavoured contents of their waterbags. After they finished their brief meal, Palin asked Elidor for another lesson. He felt that he had been patient and restrained in waiting several hours before making the request, although it was nearly all he had thought of since he had woken up.

Elidor’s gaze was knowing. “You must not allow the magic to take you in this way, young one. Spellwork can be as habit-forming as a drug, for those with the inclination.”

Palin murmured something agreeable and respectful, despite the impatience that burned inside of him. He had no desire to hear yet another lecture from a senior White Robe who felt that Palin’s devotion to the art verged on the vulgar. At least this one wasn’t silently comparing Palin to Raistlin, if only because he hadn’t the context to do so.

Despite his clear reservations, Elidor delivered the lesson. This time, Palin bypassed cantrips and was able to commit a proper spell to memory on the first attempt.

The elf offered him a stiff smile.

“You do seem to have the talent. What did you say your family name was again?”

“Majere.”

“Hmm. Like the god. But Majere was not a god of magic.”

“The gift runs through my grandmother’s line, not my grandfather’s.”

“What was her family name?”

“Aelan. But so far as I know, there were no formal wizards of the Tower in her family.”

“Aelan. Hmm. I may have met a wizardress of that name once, in fact, although there’s no saying if she was any relation of yours. Two hundred years ago, perhaps, which would be a hundred years after the Cataclysm, for me.”

Palin was gripped by a deep thrill of excitement. “That would be nearly three hundred years ago, for me. What a find it would be if she were my ancestor!”

Elidor sniffed. “I would not be too interested. She was a foul practitioner of the Black Robes. It is unlikely she ever married, with such a shame hanging over her head.”

“Sister to an ancestor, perhaps,” Palin conceded. “It is a shame about the Black Robes,” he added prudently, not wishing to invite scrutiny, “but it would be proof that the talent runes deep in our family.”

Elidor appeared to abruptly lose interest, for he shrugged listlessly. “It is nothing that you can prove here, if you intend to stay.”

“I don’t know what I intend. We don’t even know if we will find a portal in the Chasm.”

Palin intended to ask for the chance to memorize another spell, but Nabon, seated next to them, abruptly stood to scan the forest.

“We should leave now,” the giant said. “The day grows long, and I will feel safer from Azrael once we cross the river.

“You are right, giant. He is certain to circle back to us.” Elidor said, packing up his spellbooks. “Azrael does not give up his prey.”

“I know,” Nabon said softly. “So let us go.”

After a brief consultation, they decided to walk south, which seemed the direction Azrael was least likely to anticipate. From there they hoped to find a boat for hire, or perhaps some other bridge.

“I do not believe that there is one,” Nabon cautioned, “But it has been some time since I have been south, and so we might be surprised.”

Palin watched the forest cautiously, searching for some sign of Azrael. The landscape changed gradually as they moved south, and Palin noticed that the river was narrowing, the rapids growing less dangerous. It gave him hope that they might even be able to swim it, if necessary, but when he mentioned this to Nabon, the stone giant uttered a grim laugh.

“I would not attempt it, friend. There are dead things under the water that are still hungry. No one swims this river and lives.”

Palin sighed. It did seem that no matter where they went in this grim land, there was some creature determined to make breaching the Shoikan Grove look like a kender outing.

The river narrowed even more after that, as if tempting them to the crossing despite Nabon’s warning. Palin tossed a stick a few feet out, curious to see what would happen. He drew back sharply when a skeletal hand emerged from the water to catch it.

“I told you,” Nabon muttered.

Palin frowned, too frustrated to apologize. He scanned the water ceaselessly for some means of crossing until the sound of rushing wind alerted him to something moving high above. The mage blanched at the improbable, dread form of a dragon approachin. He had already tensed to run when a flash of sunlight on scales prove the wyrm to be a silver.

“We’re saved,” the mage breathed.

“Do not approach this creature,” Nabon hissed. “I have never seen such a thing in all my years in Sithicus. It is either an illusion or a trap.”

“It is a silver dragon,” Palin insisted. “They are creatures of purest good.” He ignored the voice whispering inside of him that a silver here might be of any nature, and was more likely to a be creature of malice. Next to him, Elidor was gaping numbly at the dragon, and Palin remembered this elf, who had been taken by the Mists many years before the War of the Lance, had never seen a living dragon.

“Is it all right,” Palin reassured him. “The silvers are creatures of Paladine.”

The elf was too astounded to have heard Nabon’s dark muttering, and Palin preferred it that way. If the dragon were willing to give them a ride over the river, he did not care what its allegiance was. He tucked his hands into his sleeves and offered the wyrm a bow when, with a great gust of wind, it landed next to him.

“Honoured dragon,” Palin said. “You grace us with your presence.”

But when he looked in the dragon’s face, he saw its eyes were dark with pain.

“You may mount me,” the silver told him in a stiff, unnatural voice, and Palin had a strong impression that the noble creature was there against its will. 

“Someone is controlling it,” Elidor said, echoing his thoughts.

“Noble silver,” Palin said. “Is there some way we can assist you?”

It was a futile offer. He did not expect that Elidor possessed a spell nearly strong enough to break an enchantment such as had been laid on a being as strong -willed as a dragon.

“I am for you,” the silver said.

Palin exchanged a troubled look with Elidor. “Why would this creature be sent to us?” he asked. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“Not here or anywhere else,” Elidor answered darkly. “I can only believe that it is a trap.”

“It must be,” Nabon muttered. “Let us go away from here.”

Palin considered the matter carefully. If they left and went to the southern reaches of the river, there was a possibility that the elves there might permit them passage. But they had nothing of interest to trade for the journey, and the elves themselves might prove as hostile as Elidor’s village. It was true that a longer journey would also permit Palin more time to study from the elf’s spellbooks, and there was also the matter of the dragon itself. It appeared to be a Krynnish silver dragon, which meant that it had been brought to Sithicus as Palin and Elidor had been. The dragon was a mistwalker, and all mistwalkers were said to be guilty of something, but that did not mean that the silver had earned eternal servitude.

Logically, you have no means of freeing this creature, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Raistlin’s whispered in Palin’s head. You might make use of it to cross the river, then delay the journey once you reach the other side so that you have more time with Elidor. The elf intends to return to Krynn, so there’s a good chance you can bargain for the spellbooks. He will have no need of them in a world devoid of Solinari’s grace.

The whisper was so clear that Palin looked around, instinctively searching for a source. Yet there was no one and nothing, other than the people he had travelled with and his own insatiable need for the magic. Still, the voice made sense. There was no reason to deny the help that was available to them. Simply because the Mists wanted them to take passage with the dragon did not mean that they had to reject the offer out of hand.

“Perhaps this is the best way,” the young mage said slowly. “We have no way of knowing if we will even find a boat or bridge. Azrael hunts us, and we cannot swim. The dragon may be our only recourse.”

“This creature could dump us in the river halfway across!” Elidor hissed urgently.

“You have a sticking spell,” Palin said, the words coming urgently. “I saw it. I could memorize it as well, and we can use it on each other. Nabon can sit between us and hold onto my robes.”

“Nabon is standing right here,” the giant grumbled, “Should anyone care to ask.”

Palin grimaced. “I’m sorry. I thought that you wouldn’t mind. We could be looking for someone to bring us across for days. And by then Azrael might have found us again.”

Nabon shifted his feet uncomfortably, glancing at the dragon and then at the river with real anxiety.

“And it’s a way of travelling that you’ve never tried before,” Palin hinted.

The giant’s expression brightened just a bit. “Well, there is that.”

“So it’s settled then.”

“Well, I haven’t agreed!” Elidor said testily. “It will take some time for you to memorize the spell, perhaps long enough for Azrael to find us.”

“Need will cut the time in half,” Palin insisted. “Remember that this is the best way for you as well. The sooner you are across the river, the sooner you are closer to home.”

A flush of shame crawled up the back of Palin’s neck. This was no more than base manipulation, and he was keenly aware of it as he saw Elidor agonize over his choice.

“Let me try the spell,” Palin pushed, sensing that he was on the verge of victory. “If I can’t do it, then we’ll search for a boat.”

“Oh, very well,” Elidor grumbled. “Try if you must.”

The silver dragon waited with dead-eyed disinterest as Elidor took the appropriate spellbook out of his bag and passed it to Palin, giving him permission to bypass its enchantments. He grasped it eagerly, opening the cover with care and turning at once to where he recalled seeing the sticking spell. The words seemed to shine out at him, but they appeared slightly to be different than a standard sticking spell. Palin frowned at the page, tracing his slim finger down the list of components.

“I don’t remember this calling for a live blood sacrifice,” he said. In fact, almost no white robe spells called for such a thing, and the very few that did requested blood from the caster, not from another living source. Yet the sticking spell in Elidor’s book required the blood of a living animal.

Elidor leaned in to read the spell and drew back, frowning. “It has begun for you then.”

Palin considered the book carefully. “You mean that the Mists are shifting the allegiance of the spells I use.”

“Indeed. And it will only get worse, now that it has started.”

Palin bit his lip and looked at the dragon. He itched to climb it and escape Azrael’s side of the river. Even as he considered the werebadger, he heard an alarmingly familiar snarl in the wooded distance.

“We have no choice,” he gasped. “Nabon, look for a rabbit. That’s no different than what we would take for our dinner. I’ll memorize.”

The giant began shuffling around looking for game, while Palin tried his best to put the spell under his belt quickly. It seemed to come with disturbing ease, and in only a few minutes he had it solidly in mind. Nabon passed him the rabbit, and Palin clutched it anxiously, stroking the silky fur as he watched Elidor memorize the spell after him.

The snarling in the woods grew closer, and Palin urged Nabon and Elidor onto the silver dragon’s back. He secured the Staff of Magius by slipping it down the back of his robe, and only then did he flick his wrist, extracting his knife from its sheath. He stroked the rabbit once more, muttering, “Sorry,” then drew his dagger across the rabbit’s throat. It twitched and squealed, and Palin gathered the blood as he recited the words to the spell.

A red haze of ecstasy passed through his body, such as he had never felt before, even when casting the from the spellbook of Magius, and the magic seemed to burst from every pour of his skin. He felt secure on the dragon at once, and he was certain that both of his companions were as well.  

“There,” Palin gasped. “I think that’s done it.”

“Indeed,” Elidor muttered darkly. “Then there is no further need for the rabbit. Let the poor thing down.”

“Should we keep it for dinner?” Nabon asked hopefully.

Palin hesitated. He had no experience with sacrificial remains.

“It’s been used for magic," he said at at last. "Better not. Lift us off, great one,” he bade the silver, with an urgency in his voice that mirrored the snarls in the forest. They were now very near, and even as the dragon launched into the air, Azrael burst from the trees. The werebadger leaped, scrambling up a nearby tree with the clear intent to launch himself through the air, but even ensorcelled the silver was too fast, its wingspan too powerful. The travellers were away, gliding freely through the air. Palin's stomach dropped down to somewhere around his knees and he clutched madly onto the dragon's scales as his brain tried to convince him that he was going to fall, despite the spell that glued him to his seat. Nabon, at least, seemed to be enjoying himself, for he shouted with pure pleasure as the silver swooped down, nearly skimming the surface of the river. Palin flinched, expecting to be attached by skeletal hands, but it seemed that even the undead did not dare challenge the might of one of Paladine's children. 

Crossing the water was no great matter for the wyrm, and in perhaps five minutes the party had landed on the far side of the river, the dragon settling smoothly onto packed earth. Sliding from the scaly back, Palin released the sticking spell from his companions. Even in the briefness of their flight, he had been immensely grateful for the enchantment. Without a saddle on the dragon, he was certain that he would have fallen into the cursed river.

“Perhaps we should keep him with us,” Nabon suggested, but, even as the giant spoke, the dragon took to wing and began to rapidly vanish. After a minute or two, he was no more than a distant black dot.

“It seems that is not planned for us,” Elidor sighed. “You cannot trust any aid offered in this place.”

“It worked well enough for what we needed,” Palin said shortly. His palms were damp with sweat from clutching onto the wyrm. Anxiously, he wiped them on his thighs. The sweat came off, along with a good portion of rabbit’s blood, leaving bright crimson streaks on the soiled white expanse of the mage's robes.

Palin hissed with alarm.

“Do you have a cleaning spell?” he asked Elidor.

“Already memorized. I was always using them for the house.”

The elf aimed the spell at Palin’s white robes, which were immediately restored to their customary bright, snowy expanse. But the spell did not work entirely as desired, for vivid red streaks from the rabbit’s blood remain indelibly etched into the cloth.

The young mage gasped, wiping frantically at the marks.

Elidor slowly shook his head. “I did not mean to leave that. Perhaps…” he trailed off.

Palin wiped again. He longed to try the cleaning spell himself, but was beset by a sinking feeling that he already knew the source of the trouble. The land was marking him. He had been given a choice, one between the life of a living thing and his own convenience, and though he had convinced himself that slaughtering the rabbit for a spell was no different than making a dinner of it, he had known in his bones that the gulf between the those two things was vast.

“Never mind,” Palin whispered between gritted teeth. “It doesn’t matter.”