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told the power would react to how it was handled. A harsh grip caused the zoana to gush like a bursting dam, but a softer approach yielded a more measured flow. So far, he hadn't been able to make it work, and this time wasn't any different. The zoana refused to return of its own accord, as if it was playing coy.
    Horace pushed back against the frustration building inside him, threatening to unravel his concentration. At this pace he would die of old age before he mastered his powers. Ubar was a dutiful instructor, but there was little he could tell Horace about the void. The Shinar dominion was a mystery to most sorcerers. Not even Lord Mulcibar had been able to deliver much insight about its workings. Horace had been hoping to find his own path throughtrial and error, but the way continued to elude him. The feeling that there was something wrong stayed with him, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was, and so it grew.
    After a time—he could never be sure of how long he had been inside this meditative retreat—Horace gave up on coaxing the flow of Shinar and went straight to the gateway. With a firm shove, he slammed it closed. The purple bands evaporated, leaving the sky a hazy gray once again. The uniform blankness calmed him once again, soothing away his qualms. His head buzzed with a pleasant euphoria. It was almost like floating. Absently, he noticed that the muscles in his physical body had begun to unkink themselves. And he allowed himself to drift along on these sensations, not pushing his thoughts in any one direction, content to simply exist in this tranquil moment.
    A face shimmered in his consciousness. Its soft edges surrounded in golden hair. Delicate eyebrows pinched together as her lips arched in a delicious frown. The blue of her eyes dazzling like a clear midsummer sky. Passing underneath this vision, Horace gazed up at the woman he loved. Or thought he loved. Things had become…complicated. With his first wife, Sari, he remembered they had just fallen in together like two old friends, as comfortable with each other as if they shared one mind. But it was different with Alyra. She tested and goaded him, challenging his every decision. Being with her was intoxicating, but also demanding.
    Points of bright light flickered on the edges of his awareness, disturbing his calm. Alyra's face shuddered like a leaf caught in a stiff wind and gently faded from view. Horace fixed his gaze on the disturbance. A bank of dark gray clouds billowed far out on the plain, moving toward his position. Every so often, light would twinkle inside the inky mass. Ghoulish green like the lightning from a chaos storm. His calm evaporated.
    The gray fog bordering his hidden world no longer felt soothing. Instead, it had taken on a disturbing aspect. He sensed hostility within the approaching darkness, although he couldn't say from what. He felt compelled to investigate, even though the part of him still connected to the conscious world wanted to break free. There was something about the phenomenon that drew him onward. He felt himself moving forward. Distant noises echoed. Faintcrackles. They were almost familiar, but not quite. Then an invisible force took hold of him. He struggled against the unseen grasp, even as it pulled him deeper into the murky clouds. His mental vision vanished in the haze. Panicked, he reached for his physical body. The grasp gave another hard yank, and then the world exploded in a rush of gray and white.
    Horace blinked as the vision faded, to be slowly replaced by the contours of a familiar room. White plaster walls surrounded him. The ceiling was sapphire blue. The wooden floor was reassuringly solid beneath his crossed legs. He placed both hands on the floor, palms down, and took comfort in its solidity.
    Lord Mulcibar's ganzir mat laid spread out before him. As always when looking upon it, his gaze was drawn along the geometric shapes that seemed to move and pulse as if the mat were a living