I was young when my parents pushed me out into the world as an apprentice to Karnelian the majiksmith. He took me in though, despite my youth, and taught me a little of what he knew. He also warned me daily of the many evils in our world on the Carousel. He told me of the Old Gods and their attempts to enslave the people they created to be free. He told me of Gabr'al and Cysil and of the great power that they wielded as brother and sister. And he told me of Sharmayn, the fallen goddess, who came to the Carousel to bring the gift of Love, and of her terrible, undying punishment.

Then came the days of the Dark One, and Karnelian became a different man. Where once stood a man of peace, there was a man of powerful, almost devastating wizardry. Often it was he would leave for many days and then return, weak and injured. He did not speak of these times to me, but spent his time home at his arcane anvil, supposedly formed in the pits of the Dragons' Teeth mountain range of the north. Days he would spend, hammering and carving, bending, and all the time speaking the incantations he desired. I did not understand the words then and I don't remember them now. I peeked while he worked and saw only his shadow cast by the light created from his magiking. I was frightened and turned away from this man that I had loved as a father.

It was late in the eighth month of the second year of the Dark One's coming that Karnelian stumbled into my room after an absence of more than a month. He collapsed at the foot of my bed and reached for me, but was too weak. I ran to him, funny as it sounds, and leaned over him. He put into my hand a ring of black iron and told me of the hiding place of his death-gift to me. He died in my arms, a father with his son's tears wet on his breast. I vowed then to free his soul from the monster that had killed him, a demondarc, sent by the Dark One.

I went to the hiding place of Karnelian's death-gift. It was a beautiful spot, deep in the Forest of the Green Lady. A waterfall broke the peaceful silence enjoyed by the wood. It was here that Karnelian had placed his gift. I dove under the fall, hoping, believing in what my surrogate father had told me. Maybe that's all it was, just blind faith, that allowed me to find the bag at the bottom of the pool. I don't know. I do know that my right hand reached out and there it was. I pulled at the water, trying to climb out, but something continued to drag me down. I knew I was going to die. There, in the same pool that I was born, I was going to die. At least I had good company, though. It's funny what one thinks about when one dies. My company was Mastrasshaa himself for, according to legend, this was his home. I felt the blackness come over me. I don't remember anything between that point and the time I awoke.

When my senses returned, I found myself in a damp cave; grey and green moss covered the floor and walls, and the sound of rushing water filled my head. I looked up and forward and, at this point I must have been dreaming, I saw Mastrasshaa the Water Lord, sitting in a throne of river-smoothed stone. He looked down and smiled and, in a voice like a brook after a storm, he said "Welcome, little brother. Now be healed and return."

Once again, darkness came over me, and I slipped from consciousness. I woke up on the bank of the pool.

It was getting close to dark and I had to get home. I stood and, in my hand, was a bag of strange cloth, canvas, but not quite. I closed it tighter than it already was and ran back to Karnelian's house, which he had also left me.

When I got home, I opened the sack. A blue glow effused from the bag and reminded me of the light coming from Karnelian's sorcery. I laid the contents of the bag on my bed: a sword, a headband, and a necklace. All of them had blue gems embedded in them, and it was from these that the light came.

I took the sword in my hand first. It was, and still is, the most beautiful and well-crafted blade I had ever seen. It didn't just swing, but sliced at the air, and where it cut, a faint blue glow remained for a moment before fading. I placed the sword down next to the necklace and picked up the headband. It was made of silver and a small blue stone was embedded in the front of it in a simple round setting. It was actually quite plain. Many people in the Cities had headbands similar to this one. I put it on, and felt it begin to tighten around my head. I immediately grabbed at it and wrenched it loose. I felt it expand again as I held it. I again placed it on my head, and again it contracted, but this time I did not stop it, once again trusting in the man who had been my only father. It tightened just a little, not enough to hurt, but enough to be secure. It would not fall off while riding or fighting.

Finally, I picked up the necklace. Its gem was by far the largest of the three. I put it around my neck, hoping that it would not contract like the headband. It didn't. It just hung there about my neck, not doing anything. I took it off and put it in my locking chest with the headband and sword.

I went to the kitchen and fixed a leg of lamb for myself. As I ate, the suns went below the horizon and the night came quickly. I noticed then the two very small gems on my ring. My ring, the same one Karnelian had given to me before he died, was that of a fanged skull, with two gems that looked dark black with only outside light to look at them. But they were glowing then, the same blue as the gems in my weapons. I quickly crossed over to my bedroom to find blue light streaming from between the boards in my chest. I opened it with but a thought it seems, and the light increased its intensity to a lightning-bright glare. Then it dimmed to a soft, pale blue glow. My right hand, with the ring on it, reached for the headband. I say "it" reached because I had no intention of touching it, much less picking it up. It reached out and picked up the headband and laid it on my head. Then I reached out again, this time for the sword. As my hand touched the finely engraved hilt, a spark of lightning flew from my headband to the gem embedded at the bottom of the grip. Suddenly, words, thoughts, and memories flooded my mind, and I felt the presence of Karnelian. I saw a fight in my mind, like a memory, but not mine. I saw Karnelian and the demondarc battle in a strange field of red grass and a green sky. Karnelian had spoken to me of this place in whispers at night when I was a child. It was Neverwhere. I knew this because Karnelian had known this and I was Karnelian. I saw the demondarc reach out with its ethereal self and hook my former tutor's soul and stretch it until it snapped back. Then, as my master lay on the ground, the demondarc ripped at Karnelian until it seemed that he was dead. He left my master, dying, on the ground of that legendary land. I saw Karnelian summon to him then a strange being, like a man, but with olive-colored skin and sharp, pointed ears, like some mis-coloured elf. The being leaned over Karnelian, and, crying, muttered a spell I could not discern, for it was in no language known to me. He then turned around and disappeared as quickly as he had arrived. Karnelian, too, had disappeared, but soon the image resolved to my bedroom and the scenes I described earlier.

But, I've spoken enough of me. I will now tell you of that mis-colored elf, the one who gave my teacher the power to come back to me.

I was working at The Dragoncleaver Inn inside the fourth wall of Nov'ian. It was my third apprenticeship since Karnelian had died. It was late and I was tired. There were several men still at the tables drinking their wine and dallying with the wenches. Then a hooded man entered the room from the hallway, which was strange, for the outside hallway door had been locked for several hours. He walked up to the counter and asked me for a room. I looked back at him and asked for payment in advance, which is common practice in Nov'ian. He merely laughed. I still hear that laugh in my nightmares sometimes. It was the laugh of a madman. Then he abruptly stopped and handed me a ruby stone of incredible size and beauty. I, of course, gave him the best rooms we had.

Later that night, I heard a scream come from the direction of the stranger's room. I walked down the hall cautiously, not knowing what to expect, and scared of what might be there, behind the door. I was spared that fear, because there was no door. It had been burned off almost instantly by the appearance of the thing beyond its charred remains. I remembered it from the memories I had of Karnelian's last battle. It was a demondarc. The stranger was in front of it in a strange fighting stance. His thumb and fourth finger were clenched tightly to his palm. I had heard of the Deadly Arts, but had never seen them. This man, if he was a man at all, was obviously a master. He leaped up, higher than I had thought possible for any man, and he continued up, through the ceiling. Then the room and all in it was consumed by a bright blue light of immense power and intensity. I was blinded for a moment, and when I regained sight, the room was as it should have been, but for the cloven footprints of the demondarc melted into the stone floor.

The stranger then descended from the ceiling as if it were natural to do just that. I stared at him for a few minutes without speaking, without knowing whether to be afraid or overjoyed. Then he pulled back the hood and I recognized the ears and olive skin. It was the same being that had helped Karnelian in that one dream so many days before. He said in a voice that was neither human nor immortal "Well, my young friend. Will you join me as your tutor said you would? I held a deep respect for old Karnelian, you know. He said that we would meet like this. Will you join me and help avenge his death?"

"He wasn't old." That was all I could say at that moment to maintain my sanity.

"I need food," he said. "Where is the food in this place? Come on boy, answer me."

"It's.... I don't even know your name."

"Well, if it helps you find the food, it is Moonflame, Moonflame of Lost Elderon. Now, tell me boy, where is the food!"

I took this strange Moonflame of Lost Elderon to the kitchens and he ate as if he hadn't eaten in weeks. I later learned that he hadn't.

"And your name, boy? What is your name?"

"I am Hawklok of the Rebuilt Cities," I said, quickly adding the place- name as the stranger had.

"Hawklok? What kind of name is Hawklok?"

"What kind of name is Moonflame?" I responded.

"Moonflame is the name of the last of the stardragons. Haven't you heard the stories, boy? The legends of the coming of the last dragonrider who shall come riding the last stardragon? Surely you jest."

He laughed then, only this was the laugh, not of the insane, but of the old, the laugh of someone remembering a joke an old friend had once told him. Yes, that was it. He laughed the laugh of an old joke. Apparently it was a joke on me.

"Yes," he said, "you will come with me, Hawklok of the Rebuilt Cities, as your teacher said, however rash you may be. Come. Eat. I shall tell you of my world, and of why I am here."

"You see," he said, "I am the last of the Elderonians. I'm sure you've heard of us- the lost race of sorcerer-emperors and our empire that encompassed all of the Carousel, as well as some of the other planes of existence. But then came the Plague and famine in Elderon. No one knew why it hit only the Elderonians, but it killed all but a handful of us. We escaped by shifting planes into a limbo world. You know it as Neverwhere. We were happy there, but we could not recreate an entire race from so few people. After twenty years, we returned to the place of our birth, hoping that the Plague had disappeared and that we could live among the other races we had at one time enslaved.

Hatred met us at every turn, and we were forced back to Elderon. Many of us were killed in the riots that followed, even out to the bridge between Ty Fuun and Elderon. It was there that we made the crossing into our own little world. Needless to say, there wasn't much left of the beautiful cities we had left behind. The golden towers and delicate pastel homes were all destroyed by the elementals that we had banished those many centuries ago. They had returned after we left to destroy our cities and, especially, our library, the Library of the Kings. This magnificent building had been razed and the manuscripts within were completely destroyed. Nothing but ashes remained. But the elementals are not omniscient. They did not know of the Library of the Sorcerers. It was there that we kept the many items of power and the spell scrolls. My friends and I spent many hours in that underground hideaway, learning and relearning spells that we had forgotten through the years that we were gone. We rewrote many of the scrolls and one among us, Sartan, my cousin, was learned enough to create new spells, spells to extend life, even immortalize those who could complete all of the spell without dying outright at the start of the enchantment. He was the first to try the spell. He was the first to die."

He paused, then, almost weeping, and I remembered him crying over the body of Karnelian. "How did you know Karnelian?" I asked.

"Karnelian, or Karn'eel as we called him, was once one of our greatest military commanders. He was not an Elderonian of course, but he was the first off-worlder to survive the crossing to the center of the Carousel to Elderon. We took him in and taught him our ways. He taught us his. Many weapons did he create for our warrior-elite: swords and staves of incredible power, and the Stones of the Bolt. These he used to help us control the power of the Bolt, and thus we mastered the Deadly Arts. You have seen me use the Arts, and I would hazard a guess that you, too, know a little of them."

"No, I know next to nothing. I know that it is a melding of mind, body, and sorcery. That is all." I was lying and I was sure that this olive-skinned friend of mine could tell, but, just maybe, it might be worth it.

"You already know much more than average folk, friend Hawk. And I read on your brain that you see me as a friend. Good. Come. We ride in the morning, and we both need to be well rested."

I awoke early that morning, perhaps the seventh hour, but when I went to Moonflame's room, it was empty. I walked outside and found him under attack by five thieves. Quickly, I drew my dagger, for it was all I carried. I ran in from behind one and buried my dagger to the hilt at the base of his back. He turned around in bewilderment before he fell. Then I saw Moonflame motion with his hand and the other four vanished, as well as the one I had killed.

"Good morning to you, my friend," said the Elderonian.

"'Good morning', is that all you can say, 'Good morning?'"

"I do hope you slept well."

"Oh, that makes things a lot better. I wake up, find you under attack by five of the worst-looking characters I've ever seen. I kill one with a dagger no larger than my hand, you wave goodbye to them and they all vanish. Don't I get an explanation?"

"It was a practice session for me. You see, I created those ruffians so that I could kill them. I do this, or something similar, daily."

He started toward the tavern hall of the inn. I followed, very much impressed, and just as puzzled.

"Come, my confounded, young friend, and we shall eat and be off. We have much travelling to do if we are to reach Qyn by nightfall."

The rest of the day flew by as we raced through the different Cities: Karnek, Cymor, Nevil, and many others. We stopped only once to rest our horses and eat a meal in the late afternoon. At dusk, we reached the bridge between the Rebuilt Cities and Qyn.

A bridge is something you must see to believe. They are gold and silver and stretch for what looks like miles and miles, leading to nowhere. But once you enter one, the ground seems to fly underneath your feet, and you are across almost instantly. It is an incredible feeling, to travel without moving.

We stepped off the bridge onto the continent of Qyn. It was a different sight, not as pleasant as the Rebuilt Cities. I think this was because the Cities were new, whereas Qyn was old, very old. The cities were made of stone blocks and mortar, the roads of cobblestones. The smell of age was almost repugnant. Moonflame rode toward an inn, The Butcher's Head. It was old and musty, and the proprietor looked the same. He obviously knew Moonflame, for we were immediately taken up to the top floor and given the Emperor's Suite. It was strange, there being such luxury in an almost abandoned inn. The mirrors were gilded, and the chandeliers were also of gold. Light spells had been used to provide the lighting from the candles; there was too much of a fire hazard to use real flames.

Moonflame threw his sword and cloak onto the bed, then flung himself into the air over it. He hovered there for a moment before lowering onto the mattress. Then he slept.

I went through the common door to my room. I removed the necklace from underneath my shirt and pulled my cloak over my head and laid both on the bed. I unlaced the sword's scabbard and leaned it against the wall beside the bed. I put the cloak and necklace in the chest-of-drawers and locked it with the skeleton key that Moonflame had given me. Then I laid down and thought.

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