The scream that woke Alim was haunting. It took him a moment to realize it had come from Master Iruntal's room. Hurriedly, Alim threw on his attendant-garbs. Still half asleep, he almost forgot to take his parchment and quill.

He stumbled through the door that lead directly into Master Iruntal's quarters. The grand open windows flooded the room with moonlight. Master Iruntal lay curled up on his bed, quivering. Alim rushed over to him - it had never been this bad before. "Master Iruntal!", he said, but the Master couldn't hear him of course. Alim took one of Master Iruntal's hands and squeezed it gently.

Master Iruntal's head snapped up: "I've had a vision!", he exclaimed - his blind eyes looked slightly past Alim. "It was a beautiful night! The moon shone brightly and the stars glistened in the sky! And the night was filled with the sounds of nature!" Alim let Master Iruntal hold on to his left arm and wrote as Master Iruntal spoke. "But suddenly everything fell silent! Like before the coming of a storm. And then the stars faded! One after another, until there were none left! Only the moon remained in that pitch black sky. But soon it too vanished! As if it had been swallowed up by the sky!" Other scholars had arrived by now, their robes too only hastily thrown on. They listened with dread as Alim kept writing. "Only the orange lights remained! Beautiful lights from towns and castles, ports and ships. The ships at the horizon disappeared first, leaving not even their silhouettes to be seen, ports and towns followed as the vanishing of lights turned into a wave of darkness - rushing across the land it came ever closer, swallowing one settlement after the other, before at last the lights around me went out and the world was left in absolute darkness!"

Shaken, Alim put his quill down. The stars and moon vanishing? And the lights from settlements? What did it mean? "This is an alarming vision.", one of the higher scholars said, "We must look into this with the other Seers. Let Iruntal rest for now.", he turned to Alim, "The transcript?" "Here Master.", Alim handed his writing to the scholar.

"Good", he said, "You go rest now too. In your personal room. We will have another attendant accommodated in the attendants-chamber to take care of Iruntal for the night." "Yes, Master"

At the door, Alim shortly looked back into the room full of scholars and Master Iruntal, and with a faint but growing fear in his heart, he left.