ocean, and then dried for ten summers in a desert climate.
'That, my dear, cost a sum of diamonds, twice as much,
by weight, as the dried seaweed.' She looked at Coryn and actually grinned. She was enjoying herself immensely, Coryn realized. 'I actually
So was Coryn. 'Who sells things like this?'
'I myself did, for a long time-many, too many years. Now that I have closed my shop, there are others-none so knowledgeable, nor with such a complete selection, as I was proud to maintain. I got this from an importer who brought it across the ocean from Kothas. Palanthas has more of such merchants than any other city in the world, though you will find magic-sellers in Sanction, Caergoth, Haven-even in rat-holes like Tarsis.'
'Of course there are other ways to gain certain components,' Dalamar interjected. 'Go out yourself, snare a hundred bats, then dry them in a kiln so carefully that you can remove their eyes, their fur, and their feet, still intact. Takes a bit of learning, and time-but saves you the cost, and dealing with fools.'
'I will learn how to do exactly that one day,' pledged Cory.
She turned her attention to her glass, which had been heating up all this time. Following instructions, she gathered a medium-sized lump of the molten material on the end of one of the long tubes. Heating it carefully, she watched it soften, and turned the pole quickly to keep the gooey stuff from falling into the furnace. Soon it was soft and malleable.
'Now-we move to the well,' said Jenna.
All three smoothly shifted to a depression in the floor where cooling white mists swirled. Coryn spun the pole as fast as she could, watched in amazement as the soft glass swelled into a small, perfect globe. She looked up, questioningly, as Jenna nodded. The Red Robe spoke a word of magic that kindled a spark into each of the three bowls of components.
Immediately, smoke began to churn upward, a thick vapor as pure white as any soft summer cloud. Dense and compact, it roiled and spun over the bowls. Coryn tried to watch the sputtering flames. She knew that she had only seconds to act from the last spark of the flame until the cloud started to disperse. And instinctively she understood what she had to do.
Judging her moment without so much as a glance at the other two wizards, who were busy with their own spell preparations, she exhaled completely and leaned down to touch her lips to the edge of that churning white vapor. Slowly, care-fully, she inhaled through her mouth, drawing that mist into her lungs. She felt no shortness of breath-if anything, the pure white smoke was strangely invigorating. She inhaled for a very long time, until all the smoke was gone.
She started blowing through her pursed lips as she touched the end of the shaft to her mouth. The globe of molten glass hung loosely on the other end. Carefully she puffed, filling the soft globe with smoke, watching as it assumed a spherical shape and began to swell. Coryn felt a wonderful sense of release as the smoke rushed out of her, faster and faster, surging into the soft glass. The globe expanded, the glass pure and thick and clear.
She felt drained; the smoke had exhausted her, her limbs were weak and trembling. But she could not falter now. Cory twisted the pole, breaking the connection to the globe, and then she snatched up the cork Jenna had left nearby. She sealed the glass orb tightly and leaned down to pick it up. It was cool to the touch, and strangely light, almost buoyant. Gingerly, she carried it to the work table, setting it on the third wooden stand. Dalamar and Jenna had already placed their own perfect spheres to either side.
They rested there-three perfect globes of smoke, red and white and black murk swirling in their respective containers.
The clouds were impossibly dense, opaque, yet they gave the impression of massive depth, as if one could look inside them for a great distance. Each was a perfect color: red, black, and white.
Coryn didn't say anything-she was too weak to say anything, as she collapsed into the chair and drew deep breaths. But even through her half-closed eyelids she could see the three globes, and she was proud.
The white one was the largest of them all.
Though it was invisible to the vast population of Krynn, Dalamar watched the black moon as it crested the eastern horizon. The cold, lightless presence filled his heart with sublime power-power that focused, and expanded through the smooth orb of glass he held in his hands. It was past sunset on the Night of the Eye.
Within that globe, black smoke churned and swirled, angrily pressing against the shell of its prison, desperately striving for release, while all around Dalamar was a vast gulf of space, with the steep slopes of the mountain falling away from him. He had teleported here by himself, impatient for the magic, and knowing that the women would soon follow.
'Not long… soon you will have the world,' he whispered, caressing his creation, the churning sphere of black smoke.
He looked up to the heavens. Solinari, the white moon, was high in the dome of the night sky, the brightest object up there. Red Lunitari chased her alabaster cousin. The black, with its faster orbit, would soon close the gap, and indeed pass the other two before the dawn.
Dalamar felt a small rush of pleasure at the knowledge that he alone could actually see the black disk of Nuitari.
To Jenna and Coryn, it would be but a dark space against the backdrop of stars. To a Black Robe, however, it was the very pulse of life itself. Nuitari had the fastest cycle of all the moons, and though it was far behind the others now, by the middle of the night, it would arrive at zenith with Solinari and Lunitari.
And at that midnight, the Night of the Eye would reign over the world.
Suddenly impatient, the dark elf again gazed at the firmament. He stood at the very crest of Worldsmont, crown of the High Kharolis and the loftiest summit on all of Ansalon. Even in the midst of summer, the air was cold, the night breeze-while gentle-carrying a bite of late autumn. Yet Dalamar felt no discomfort; tonight, magic would warm them all.
He saw Jenna climbing toward him, coming along one of the ridges draping away from the summit. Carrying her orb of red smoke, she made her way steadily along a bank of snow, kicking her steps in the frozen slush as she ascended. In minutes she had joined the dark elf at the summit.
She did not meet the eyes of the other wizard, not at first. Instead she faced the east, head tilted back so that the red light of her moon washed across her face, bringing a bloody brightness to the smooth folds of her robe. 'She is beautiful, is she not?' she asked reverently, after a time.
'Yes-though hers is a cold beauty,' Dalamar said. 'I feel the majesty of my own moon, burning hot as it courses through my veins.'
'Where is Coryn-have you seen her yet?' asked the Red Robe.
'No. But I'm not surprised-she will arrive lower on the mountain than either of us.'
'Of course,' Jenna agreed. Since each of the two of them had been to this mountaintop before, they had been able to teleport unerringly. Coryn, however, had been forced to rely on the coordinates provided by her fellow wizards. For safety's sake, they had directed her to a broad, flat shoulder, where there was little chance of a miscalculation that might send her tumbling down the slope.
'There she is,' noted the enchantress, pointing down the west ridge.
Dalamar saw the speck of whiteness, Coryn's robe, moving with painstaking slowness along the snaking crest. He cast a glance at the sky, worried. 'She'd better hurry.'
'Don't worry. She wouldn't dare let herself be late,' Jenna replied.
Indeed, as the moons drew toward the zenith, they could see the young wizard increase her gait, stepping from rock to rock with lengthening and stronger strides, holding her large glass sphere cradled in her hands. She arrived at the summit with minutes to spare.
Plans had been made, the spells memorized and rehearsed during the long afternoon. Now, there didn't seem to be anything more to say. The trio of wizards simply stood and stared, as the three moons drew into very close proximity at the very zenith of the sky. The three gods of magic embraced the world, their power flowed, and the Night of the Eye was upon them.
Jenna began the casting. She held her globe high over her head and addressed the heavens. 'Praise to Lunitari the Red. May the blood of life ever reflect your vitality and power.'
As still as a statue, she maintained her pose while Dalamar hoisted his own orb.
'Hail to Nuitari the Black. May the perfection of your immaculate darkness ever shroud yourself from danger and threat.'
