Dan Parkinson - The Gates of Thorbardin

Again the crystal on Glenshadow's staff winked alight, this time a cold white light as if the white moon's glow focused in it. A single shaft of white light shot upward, bathing in hard luster the hammer slung on the dwarf's back. Clinging to the cone, Chane loosed the hammer, braced himself and swung its spike-end against the stone above him. He struck again, and a black shard fell, bouncing once on the slight slope of the monolith, ringing as it struck the pavement below.

Snagging the hammer in his belt, the dwarf reached up, found purchase in a new handhold, and retrieved the hammer to cut another one.

"Why didn't I think of that?" the kender chuckled. "Here I was thinking about slings and pulleys or some such."

The red moon was nearly eclipsed now, but still Glenshadow's staff glowed, and strong white light bathed the top of the spire where the dwarf worked. Abruptly, Chestal Thicketsway remembered the nature of his unseen companion — the spell that had somehow associated itself with him. He glanced around nervously. "Wizard, the light… does this mean that magic is working here again?"

"No magic of mortals," the wizard breathed. "Nor any that I can sense or understand."

"The gods are not bound by the limits they set," the Irda whispered.

"Only Krynn-magic is captured in Spellbinder's net."

"Ashes and woe," something voiceless mourned.

"I'm glad to hear that," the kender sighed. "I'm not in any hurry to find out what happens when Zap gets unbound."

Atop the tall cone, Chane cut another hold, then a final one, and pulled himself up for a look. The top of the monolith was a shallow cup, no more than four feet across, with objects lying in it. The largest was a small, broken statue apparently carved from alabaster — a weathered and eroded representation of a man with a beard, face turned upward, one outthrust arm intact, its hand holding a two-inch oval of dark red crystal. The little statue, which would have stood no more than three feet tall, lay on its back. Part of its other arm lay beside it, but the hand was missing.

The other object in the bowl was a metal ball the size of Chane's fist — deeply rusted, but still showing clearly the dent of ancient impact. A green bronze plate was imbedded in the ball, and Chane bent close. The enhanced light of the white moon showed him part of the inscription: Size four siege projectile, specific for use with superior flipshot…

Gnomes, he thought.

He swung a leg over the lip of the cup and extended a hand, meaning to set the little statue upright for a better look. But suddenly the red crystal pulsed and hummed, the statue's fingers fell away, and the crystal dropped into his hand. As Chane closed his own fingers around it, it stilled. He knew then, beyond question, why he had climbed the cone. The crystal had called him. He was to take it.

Vaguely, in the dwarf's mind, a face appeared — a face much like his own, the bearded face of a mountain dwarf. But not his own face, though there was a strong resemblance. The face was more stern than Chane's, and bore the scars of battle. And it looked out at him from the curved portal of a studded, horned helmet with a single ornament — a crystal that might have been a twin of the crystal in Chane's hand except for the color. The helmet's stone was green.

"Grallen?" It was his own whisper that asked it.

The face in Chane's mind seemed to nod, to encourage… then it faded.

Feeling more confused than ever before in his life, Chane Feldstone secured the red crystal in his pouch, slung his hammer on his back, and eased down to the new holds he had cut. Step by step, hold by hold, he lowered himself down the face of the monolith. Above him, the enhanced light faded and the spire's peak was only that — a stone monolith in moonlight.

At the bottom, they gathered around him, the kender chattering questions, the wizard trying to get a word in, the Irda kneeling to look closely at his face. She peered, then pointed at his forehead. Glenshadow bent to look.

On the dwarf's forehead, above the bridge of his nose, was a red spot, almost the shape and tint of the red moon.

In the Irda's hut, over mugs of spicy drink, Chane told them what he had found. He brought out the crystal to show to them, but when Glenshadow touched it, it burned his fingers. The kender also had been reaching for it, but he withdrew his hand quickly at the wizard's cry of pain.

"I expect you'd better hang on to that," Chess said prudently.

The two visible moons were ordinary moons again, as they had been before the omen, but there was a darkness in the northern sky — an absence of stars where there should have been stars. The black moon hung there, not seeming to move, and Glenshadow shuddered when he looked in that direction. The Irda sat outside her hut, facing northward, her head thrown back as one who listens intently.

The lamplight and the sweetnog were soothing. Chane felt himself nodding, then yawned and lay his head on the table. The kender was already asleep.

Chane and his companions weren't the only ones who watched the omen of the moons. A hundred miles northwest, in the glades of Qualinost, the elves of Qualinesti saw it and sent rangers to spread the word. Something was forecast that demanded study. Evil was afoot.

Eighty miles due west of the Valley of Waykeep, mages at the Tower of

High Sorcery also watched the dark moon occlude first the white and then the red. Councils were called — councils at which the wearers of white robes and those who wore red were much more in evidence than the wearers of black.

North of the wilderness, at the great pass city of Pax Tharkas, people lined the battlements to watch the moons in wonder.

And twenty miles from the ancient temple of Gargath, across the ridge line separating Waykeep from the Vale of Respite, ranks of armed goblins spread across the north end of a fertile valley, awaiting orders for their advance southward, where unsuspecting villages lay sleeping among the moonlit fields. Among them, aloof and haughty, were some far larger creatures — ogres who had come from their lairs to join the goblin horde, knowing there would soon be sport for them.

On a brushy rise above the goblins' dark camps a lone figure stood, looking into the sky. Moonlight of two colors shone on a horned helmet and emblazoned black body armor. The faceplate of the many-horned helm was a hideous metal mask, a demon-faced device from which dark, searching eyes peered.

As the occlusion of the visible moons began, the figure unfastened and removed the faceplate. The moonlight revealed the face behind it: a woman's face, stern and dark-eyed. A face that might have been beautiful, had it chosen to be, but that had made other choices from which there had been no turning back.

As the dark moon of Krynn eclipsed the first of the visible moons, the woman drew a thong from beneath her breastplate, a thong from which was suspended a dark, misshapen lump. "Caliban," she said.

The voice that responded was a dry, husky whisper, heard within her ears

— an ancient, querulous voice. "Why does she call me now," it breathed.

"She does not need me here. There is nothing here that she cannot do for herself."

The woman frowned. "Caliban, the moons. What does it mean?"

"The moons, she says," the dry voice had whispered.

"She wants to know the story of the moons."

"Tell me!"

"It is another of the Queen's omens," the husky voice rasped. "She tells the Highlords that the time is almost at hand for their invasion of

Ansalon, and she tells whatever gods may notice that she claims this time and this world as hers. She warns them not to interfere."

"Another omen," the armed woman snapped. "Is there a message there for me?"

"Ah," the dry voice said. "She seeks messages for herself."