Down the long boulevard from the Arts District to the Garden of Astarin, on shattered pavers, the cracks oozing slime as green as the mist hanging in the air, the first elves to return from Silvamori went like a funeral. All walked in silence, each in grief, until at last they came to the Garden of Astarin. Then did they cry out, the lords and the Wildrunners and the clerics. They cried to see the garden, the boxwood that framed it into a star only naked sticks, brown and lifeless. They wept for the silence of the place and sobbed to see the Tower of the Stars. This, of all the structures in the city, had fared worst. Turrets lay in piles of rubble on the ground, and the walls bore cracks that went right through to the heart of the stone. The gems that once studded the walls lay scattered about the lifeless grounds, fallen years before.

And the elves wept, they wept, to see their princess, Alhana Starbreeze, come out from that ruin to greet them, for in her amethyst eyes lay all her pain, her grief for her father's folly and death, her sorrow for the land. None could look into those eyes and not think her aged beyond the count of her years. None could look and not weep, for she was now-as once her father had been-the embodiment of the land.

Only Dalamar kept still, only he didn't weep or cry out, and that was because had he shouted, he'd have shouted in rage against those very gods whose statues now lay fallen, those gods who played out their bids for power in the hearts of mortals, jockeying for position as though Krynn were only a khasboard and Silvanesti simply a quarter of the field.

And so, in the ruin of high places, the high met. In aching gardens, among trees only weakly healing and others simply dying, among the skeletons of boxwood and hydrangea and peonies, Porthios of the Qualinesti greeted Alhana of the Silvanesti. The two exchanged dry kisses of state while Qualinesti Wildrunners warded the Tower of the Stars and the Head of House Protector, Lord Konnal, stood by. His unhappiness was not veiled, and all who saw him knew he had no love for Porthios, to whom he had stood subservient on the voyage home. Anyone with eyes knew he disliked the idea that Alhana seemed so willing to welcome this Qualinesti so warmly.

Dalamar saw no more of that meeting. "Go," said Lord Konnal, even as the rest went to greet their princess. "You are not wanted here. Start your work in the Temple of E'li."

Dalamar went, wandered the temple grounds, and walked in the broken building. In sanctuaries and meditation rooms, the wind echoed mournfully. In the scriptorium where he had, for a while, been the one who sharpened the quills and scraped the parchments clean for new use, was only dust. Beyond the window the garden lay dead; not even weeds grew. Where had he stood on the morning he'd taken the little embroidered scroll case from the hand of Lady Lynntha for Lord Tellin Windglimmer? There, by that broken wall? So changed was everything, every place, that nothing woke the ghosts of memory.

Dalamar walked once down the chill corridor that ended in a room still sealed after five years. This was the place, the secret place, where a Circle of Darkness would be set if ever there was reason to do so. Here murderers and traitors were condemned to the worst punishment the Silvanesti could devise: exile. Here worshipers of the gods of Neutrality or those of Evil, mages found in magic other than white magic had been judged and cast out from the people. Upon the walls of that sealed chamber, the platinum mirrors were fixed. The Chain of Truth lay within, a wide circle of platinum links spread around the room where the accused would stand, waiting for gods to bid the chain to bind him or be still to keep him safe. He did not stay long there, for it was a cold place. When he left that place he saw, just a glimpse, a shadow on the broken earth outside. Someone else walked these grounds.

Aye, well, he thought, good luck finding comfort here.

So thinking, Dalamar went through the rest of the ruined Temple, walking through the debris of years and listening to the dry wind moaning, the skitter and scrabble of old leaves on cracked marble floors. He walked into the garden, windblown, wild as any heathen forest. Who could recognize this place now?

Dalamar stood among the ruin of the Temple and looked north to the place where, all that summer before the war, he had kept hidden his most precious secret, his found spellbooks, his dark tutors. They tugged, a little, memories of those books. What pulled harder, what called in a stronger voice, was a resolution he had made, far away on the shores of Silvamori. Dalamar Nightson must tell a god that he had a new name.

Who will know? he wondered, looking out over the wall to the Tower of the Stars. Who will know if I am here taking ruin's inventory, or if I am not? No one.

He went quickly through the city, through desolate gardens whose borders would not now be discerned by any who had not known them before war and nightmare. Above, the aspens reached aching branches to the sky, like black claws and rotting bones. The sun shone harshly, glaring at him as he went. The ferry was gone, the enspelled turtles who used to pull it fled or killed, but he found a place where the river ran thinly, speaking of damming upstream. Someone had erected a bridge, perhaps the Qualinesti guard, and this he took to the other side. There, he ran into the darker shadows of the forest. Running, he soon came to a place where once two paths had forked. He saw only barest sketches of them on the land now. He swerved into the darker forest, leaping blowdowns easily. Running, he shouted aloud, the sound like thunder in the silence of a forest emptied of all life but malignant life, secret, sullen, brooding life. He felt what he always used to feel when he left the tended paths, the designated ways. All the strictures of his life, all the ridiculous rules, all the choking ties that bound him to the intractable pattern of life among the Silvanesti fell away.

Running, Dalamar was free. But, running, he was not alone. Swift behind him, silent behind him, ran others, like shadow-hounds coursing his trail.

Dalamar stood still on the edge of the path down to the ravine, extending his senses as far as he could, both natural and arcane. His magic had long ago fallen; the wards he set years before were dead. Below the mouth of the cave gaped, dark and wide. Would the wards on the books themselves have held? He didn't know, though they were Nuitari's, or work dedicated to him. Perhaps they would have survived.

And if they hadn't?

Then they hadn't. They were treasures, and they were artifacts, but they were not more than physical manifestations of what he loved. They were not the magic, only one mage's shaping of it.

All around lay silence. His ears ached for the sound of birds in the trees, water in the stream, but the land lay desolate, exhausted. Birds had long ago flown away. Those that had not were long dead. Somewhere, deep in the forest, green dragons roamed, and creatures worse than they. But not here. Here nothing lived. The wind stirred above the ravine, high in the rattling branches of despoiled aspens. The miasma that befouled all of the air in the kingdom swirled a little, like steam over a stinking pot. Dalamar lifted his arm to cover his nose and mouth with his sleeve and went down into the ravine, down to his cave and the promise he longed to keep.

The pulse of magic no longer ran in the cave, not even a whisper of what had been breathed in the darkness. It was a dead place, not but stone and dust and air long unbreathed.

Softly, Dalamar whispered, "Shirak!" and light leaped into this hand, a clear cool globe. He hung it in the darkness and looked around. The dust of years lay upon the floor, marked by the tiny tracks of mice and voles. His work table of wild green marble was broken, cracked in the middle and fallen in two. The pots of herbs and oils and other spell components he had so secretly gathered in summer, a long time ago, were but shards in the dust, fallen from the niches in the stone wall, their colors dimmed, their contents dried and gone.