Calasta began to run as he heard the clash of weapons and smiled grimly as he heard the joyful battle song of Escobar.  As he rounded a large boulder in the mountain pass he shifted his two-handed sword in his grasp and muttered a swift prayer. The blade lit with the power of the Source, runes glowing in the half-light of early morning.

Charging into the fray, he slashed his blade through the neck of a Soul Stealer and ran toward the two warriors fighting back to back on the loose shale.

Escobar noted his approach and roared jubilantly, his battleaxe scything through opponents as his daughter fought efficiently behind him. "Calasta! We saved a few for you."

"Very generous of you, brother," noted Calasta as he skidded to a halt beside them.

Alendra grinned at him and shoved the point of her blade through the throat of a Valkyr, the slender feminine form of the poisonous flying creature dissolving with the touch of the iron. "Well met Paladin."

"And you Warrior, your beauty as ever leaves me breathless."

"You're breathless because you've been running Cal, but I'll take the compliment." She slashed at another Valkyr as it hovered in front of her, the leathery wings buffeting her. Calasta swung his blade through its legs as another dived in, smashing it to the ground. Dealing it a swift blow to the head, he ended the creature with a shrill scream that cut off in flames as the Source blade severed its soul.

"I guess we're getting too old Cal, eh?" shouted Escobar, battering at two stealers with his massive axe.

"I'm only four hundred years old," grinned the Paladin. "Hold on a moment, let me clear the decks a little." As the two warriors defended him, he paused, breathed in, and held his sword vertically, the runes beginning to glow brightly.

"On the count of three love, close your eyes," said Escobar. Alendra nodded, and after ramming her sword through the eye of a stealer, she stepped in close to the two men and closed her eyes. A gust of warm air buffeted them and a flash of light rippled out from the runes of the sword.

"You can open your eyes now," said Calasta quietly.

A spreading ring of white light rippled soundlessly away from them, wraiths, valkyr, and stealers evaporating as it touched them.

"Neat trick Cal." Escobar dropped his axe and lifted the smaller man in a massive bear hug, his huge white beard causing the Paladin to protest wheezily as the warrior kissed him firmly on both cheeks. "How are you boy?"

"Aside from a couple of broken ribs, I'm fine.

"My lady," Calasta dipped his head and lifted Alendra's hand to his lips. "I trust this old reprobate is looking after you?"

"We're still here Calasta. What of Esta?"

"We were caught by surprise in one of the abandoned forts. I'd used too much of my power to help her. I'm sorry."

Alendra sheathed her sword and hugged the Paladin tightly. "We will avenge her Calasta. My sister will not have died in vain."

Escobar dropped a meaty hand on his shoulder. "We all know the risks, Paladin. We will drink to her memory one day. Now, tell me you have a plan to take down Braemon and his minions once and for all."

"Possibly. The Lady has been as vague as normal, but we do have a task. I have completed part of it, and have recovered a pouch of silver sand from the Mountain of Night." He paused. "This world is finished, dying. We have to try and escape, but the only way we can do that is by saving another. A human child. A Dreamer."

"A Dreamer?" Escobar's bushlike eyebrows rose into his hairline. "We thought them all gone, as the Sea of Dreams is a frozen wasteland. Alendra and I had visited it before we came here, thinking perhaps we could escape through a dream portal into another reality, but there is nothing left there but ice and chasms, no dreams, no reality other than this one. The world is losing the light, night is taking over. The north now is a never-never land of wraiths and pain, where none who enter ever leave. We had to journey through a Dream Pass to get here. That is not a journey I wish to make again."

"We have one journey left old friend, then we can leave. We are all that remain of the Guardians now. The Lady and the Source will live on, this world will not. We must go south."

~~~ 

"Yes, my Lady, I understand." Calasta finished his communion with the Source and lifted his head. "The child is close, but we need to get to it before Braemon does. She is failing fast, separated from her own world by chance." He paused.

"Calasta?" prompted Alendra laying a hilt-calloused hand on one shoulder.

"The child is the key. We have to save her."

Escobar stood and lifted his axe. "Then we'd better get moving." He strode away a few paces and halted. "Which way are we going?"

Alendra raised a well-practised eyebrow and sighed, raising a faint smile from the Paladin who also stood.

"We go south, but the Lady will guide us. The child is a Dreamer, her position is ever-changing as she sleeps, her location changing with her thoughts. We must go to the Plains of Aught."

"But there's nothing there Cal?"

"Exactly Escobar, exactly... but there will be. Have you not been there during a Dreamstorm?"

"No, because it's chaos."

Alendra rose and joined her father and the Paladin. "So will it be different this time Cal?"

"Yes. Because this time the storm will be fed by only one Dreamer. The last Dreamer the Forgotten Realm will ever see..."

~~~

The line of dust ended abruptly, and the stark whiteness of the Plains of Aught stretched to infinity in front of them. As they stepped from the dusty barrenness of three days of travel onto the empty Plains, the soughing wind that had plagued them ceased, the air stilled, and all sound fell to a muffled shadow of its former self. Even their footfalls curiously deadened as they walked on across the plain.

"We've got company..." Alendra pointed to their left where a group of stealers were moving cautiously onto the Plain.

"They're afraid," stated Calasta. "We don't have much time, I can sense Braemon's presence."

A soft glow lit the air to their right and the Paladin instinctively veered toward it. "I'm going to need all the time you can buy me."

"We're on it," said Escobar rolling his shoulders to loosen them and readying his axe. As the Paladin turned to the light, Alendra called his name.

"Cal?"

"Yes."

"Come back to us."

He grinned. "If only to gaze once more on your face dear lady, I would journey back from the depths of hell."

"I'm still here you know," grumbled Escobar. "Get on with it Cal, we're running out of time."

The Paladin lifted his blade from his scabbard and spoke a few words of power, the runes lighting with blue fire. He touched the blade to the head of Escobar's axe and crossed swords with Alendra, nodding in satisfaction as blue fire coruscated along their weapons. "May the Source protect you. I'll come for you both as soon as I can." Without a backward glance, he strode away from the two warriors and towards the golden glow of a child's dream.

As the dreamlight enveloped him, the muffled noises of fighting faded and he surrendered to the power of the Dreamer.