Dalamar leaned a little over the rail, watching porpoises leaping, the shining curve of their backs glittering. Some said there were creatures who lived in the sea who looked like porpoises but were other-sea-elves, the sailors called them, people of elf-kind who had found their own way to survive the Cataclysm.

Well, Dalamar thought, we all find ways.

Him, he must find a way, too. He was sailing home, returning to a land that had once loved its people, but one that the Children of Silvanos wouldn't find so welcoming now. To the land of E'li he sailed, to the land where the gods of Good had once ruled, where they would be set up again. Not by his hand would that happen, though, and not in answer to any prayer of his heart. Dalamar Nightson his lover had named him, saying it was a strange name for a Light Elf, yet a fitting one-almost fitting. In the cave north of Silvanost, that secret place from years gone, it might well be that his hidden spellbooks yet remained. It might well be. If they were, if even one was, he would lay his hand upon it, and he would do a thing his heart now clearly called him to do.

To the Dark Son, from a dark son…

Those words had dedicated four spellbooks to god-Nuitari, that dark god who was the son of Takhisis and Sargonnas, the god of Vengeance. A better god, this one, for though he walked in darkness, he made no game of what he loved and what he treasured. Nuitari loved only magic, only secrets, only those. A better god for one who had spent his life chained by tradition and kept from the magic he so loved, the magic that fueled his heart with passion.

To the Dark Son, from a dark son…

Those words would as fittingly dedicate the heart of Dalamar Nightson, for he had not done with gods, only with those of Good who had made promises they had not remembered to keep until the world lay broken, their game board in ruin.

"Who was he?" asked the Wildrunner, Elisaad Windsweep. Off to the west, the first thin line of Silvanesti's coast stretched dark as an ink-line. So far out, the coves were straightened by distance, the sweet curves but a sketch. Nonetheless, the winds of home blew off those shores. Home! Every heart on Bright Solinari yearned westward, longing to see the forested shores, the shining towers… Beyond reason, they longed for what they'd left and had only the smallest idea of what actually remained. In cabins, on decks, and in the hold where the cargomen tended their loads, tales of Silvanesti sang on the air, stories of the homeland so long left, so deeply missed.

Elisaad stepped across the deck and came a little closer to the soldier who sat perched on the pile of rope. "Raistlin Majere," she said, "the mage who ended the Nightmare. Who was he?"

Dalamar, kneeling near and winding another pile of rope, picked up his head to listen.

"Not was," said the soldier. "Is. He's not dead, just gone from our story." He was an elder, this soldier, Arath Wingwild his name, and he had a way of smiling that made everyone near seem no older than a child at his father's knee. Elisaad appeared to like that; Dalamar didn't. Still, he wanted the story as much as Elisaad, and so he kept quiet. Though the hemp scraped his palms raw, he kept working, and he listened.

"Raistlin Majere is a human," said Arath, his nose wrinkling a little, as elves' noses tended to do when outlanders were under discussion. "A mage, and it's said he went to Wayreth and took his Tests of High Sorcery earlier than most do." His expression darkened. He didn't actually shudder, but he came close. "They didn't deal kindly with him-"

"The wizards there?"

"No, girl. The Tests." The west wind freshened. Arath picked up his head, wondering whether he scented the forest yet. He did not, only the salt sea. "The wizards, they don't come down in favor of a mage or against. They administer the Tests, that's all. What comes of them, well, the mage determines. He passes or he fails on the merit of his knowledge of magic, his ability, and his strength. I've heard it said the Tests always take something from a mage, leaving him marked in some way. This one, this Raistlin Majere, he passed his Tests, but he paid a high fee. Ruined his health, it's said. Frail as a lamb in winter. If you saw him"-now the teller shuddered-"well, you'd know. His skin is a terrible golden color, not sun-gold, not that. Like the metal itself, that kind of gold. And his eyes-"

"His eyes are gold?"

"No. They are black, and the irises… they're shaped like an hourglass."

Elisaad snorted, plainly unbelieving. "It's a fantastic enough story. You don't have to add your own touches."

Arath shook his head. "None of these things are my making, girl. What I tell you is true. I saw him in Tarsis with his companions. I was part of Lady Alhana's guard when she went wandering. I saw him when he and his companions met her."

Winding the hemp, leaving small spots of bright blood on the rope, Dalamar remembered the fisherman's story. Some humans, a half-elf, an elf-maid, a kender, and a dwarf-those were the folk who'd given aid to Alhana Starbreeze, the princess wandering in foreign ports. These, the searchers who wanted a dragon orb, went into the Nightmare Kingdom to break the spell of Cyan Bloodbane. The mage, Raistlin Majere, was one of the humans.

Gulls cried overhead, gray against the blue sky. Dalamar looked westward to the coastline coming nearer… to home.

"He has a great power, that mage," Arath said. "It's said all over the ports-in the darker quarters-that if he isn't one to be reckoned with right now, he will be soon."

"A hero?" asked Elisaad.

The old warrior snorted. "Depends on what you mean by that."

"Well, he saved the kingdom, didn't he?"

"He did, but as I hear it, he wanted the dragon orb more than he cared about the kingdom." Arath shrugged. "Ice water in his veins would warm things up for him. He looked at me once, just once, only glancing, and it was like falling into some dark place where the best thing you'll find is terror." Arath pushed away from the rail, away from the memory. "He's gone from the Red magic to the Black, that's what I hear. And so it's just as well he's gone from our story, and since he is, there no need to worry about him more."

"Well, I wasn't worrying about him," Elisaad muttered, not to Arath but to his back as he walked away. "I was just curious."

She walked away, but Dalamar stayed where he was, winding rope and listening to the sea and the cries of the sailors as they worked in the rigging. Home, he thought. Home. But the story of the mage with the hourglass eyes, he who had gone from Red magic to Black, lingered with him, winding like a whisper through all his other thoughts. Who was he? And, more insistent: How did he come to such power that he could lift a green dragon's enchantment from a whole land? Like as not he wouldn't learn the answers to those questions, soon or ever. The mage Raistlin, as Arath had said, was gone from the story of Silvanesti.

By slow, aching degrees, the first skiff made its way up the Thon-Thalas River. It was filled with temple-gear, for the returning elves deemed proper that before anything be set in order, the Temple of E'li must be reconsecrated. The altars must be cleansed, new candles set, and new wands of incense lighted. A lot had been taken out of E'li's Temple for the flight to Silvamori-altar stones, statues of the god, all of the scrolls from the scriptorium. Tapestries sat in long rolls in water-proofed crates, as did jeweled candelabra of silver and gold-all the accoutrements of worship. Dalamar, whose credentials as a servant and who had once worked in the Temple, stood in the back of the skiff. Who better to begin the task of cleaning out the debris?