Nighttime has a way of imposing its gloom upon everything it touches. Like a living thing, the shadows slithered through the boles of the wet birch trees, turning brilliant yellowed leaves and emerald grass and white bark to varying shades of grey. Raistlin knew the dark...knew it better than he knew the light...but still the transition always fascinated him.

Boundaries, between-times, twilight and the blue hours before dawn brought him some small amount of pleasure. Perhaps it was a throwback to the times when his robes had been red, when balance and neutrality had seemed the best road. Before the black velvet caressed his ankles, before the white hair hung in gleaming waves around a haunted, haunting golden face. Before the darkness had welled up from some black pool beneath the surface of coherent thought and wetted his lips with forbidden wisdom.

"Dark surroundings for dark business." he whispered aloud to the growing night.

Beside him the roan mare whickered softly in response to his voice, shifting her weight from one side to the other. Absently, he reached out and ran an elegant hand down the length of her soft nose.

"Shalafi?"

"I am here, Dalamar. Beside the blueberry thicket."

The dark elf came round the side of the spongy green and blue bush, relief at locating his master evident in his dark eyes.

"I have found the passageway. It was precisely where you predicted it would be. Shall we go, then?"

"Of course. Free the horse, she should not travel to such a place."

"But Master, how will we transport our belongings?"

"We will have no need of any but the most basic supplies where we are going, Dalamar. Those you shall carry. I have precious little strength left, certainly not enough to waste in toting a heavy bag."

Dalamar wordlessly unbuckled the packs from the mare's back, removing her halter and bit and tossing them into the brush. He patted her rump gently, compelling her to move slowly out into the peaceful night and away from them. He knelt down on the carpet of shed leaves and began to pick through the sack of spell books, rations, cloaks, medicines, and the like.

"Is the pain very bad, Master?" he finally asked. Raistlin sighed and shook his head once quickly, like a large cat flicking away a fly.

"It is tolerable now, but fast becoming more than I can bear. I shall manage for as long as I am able. I tell you, my old friend. It will not be much longer."

"I would carry you, Shalafi..."

"You will not. You have not rested soundly since we set out two months ago, and your constant worrying over me like a mother hen is becoming bothersome. I will live long enough, long enough for this last journey."

Dalamar, well used to his teacher's bitterness, took no affront to the sharp words. When Raistlin began walking again, determined and slow, the dark elf simply fell into step behind him, carrying the most precious of the spell books, the medicinal herbs that would keep his dark friend from death a little while longer. It caused him a brief stab of pain, the thought that this would be the last time the two men would walk together. Caramon should be here...

But Caramon was dead. Caramon and his laughing wife with the gentle eyes. Sensual Kitiara with her raven curls and that infectious crooked smile. They were all dead. All dead and rotting away to nothing in the rocky ground, long-gone memories of a humanity that Raistlin and Dalamar were no longer a part of.

Now all that remained was this night, this journey to a realm that the dark mage and his apprentice had only guessed at. It was the last hope for power, for life, for a continuation of the work that Raistlin...and even Dalamar to an extent...had given the better part of their lives for.

There was said to be a place, another world where there dwelt the oldest and most powerful mage ever to have existed. A relic of the Old Days before time began to be recorded.

His name was Mettamoon, and he was said to be of the undead. Raistlin had come upon an ancient tome, falling to pieces and weathered almost beyond recognition, bearing the name Mettamoon in gold leaf down the arcane binding. Within were some of the most powerful spells, the most profound writings, that had ever been seen in all of Krynn. And so, feeling the illness within him finally begin to do what it had threatened from the start; that is, painfully end his life, Raistlin had confided his intention of finding the ancient mage before death. To his extreme satisfaction, Dalamar had at once volunteered to help him get there. After two months of wearying, endless search, the two men had come upon a possible portal to the world whereupon the magic user Mettamoon lived.

Neither one knew what to expect, but they faced their future with as much bravery and stoicism as they had faced their past.