Time of the twins [antikvár]

A lone figure trod softly oward the distant light. Walking unheard, his footfalls were .ucked into the vast darkness all around him. Bertrem indulged n a rare flight of fancy as he glanced at the seemingly endless •ows of books and scrolls that were part of the Chronicles of Astinus and detailed the history of this world, the history of Krynn. "It's like being sucked into time," he thought, sighing as he glanced at the still, silent rows. He wished, briefly, that he were "aeing sucked away somewhere, so that he did not have to face the difficult task ahead of him. i; "All the knowledge of the world is in these books," he said to himself wistfully. "And I've never found one thing to help make the intrusion upon their author any easier." Bertrem came to a halt outside the door to summon his cour-lage. His flowing Aesthetic's robes settled themselves about him, falling into correct and orderly folds. His stomach, however, refused to follow the robes' example and lurched about wildly. Bertrem ran his hand across his scalp, a nervous gesture left over from a younger age, before his chosen profession had cost him his hair. What was bothering him? he wondered bleakly—other than going in to see the Master, of course, something he had not done since . . . since He shuddered. Yes, since the young mage had nearly died upon their doorstep during the last war. War . . . change, that was what it was. Like his robes, the world had finally seemed to settle around him, but he felt change coming once again, just as he had felt it two years ago. He wished he could stop it. . . . Bertrem sighed. "I'm certainly not going to stop anything by standing out here in the darkness," he muttered. He felt uncomfortable anyway, as though surrounded by ghosts. A bright light shone from under the door, beaming out into the hallway. Giving a quick glance backward at the shadows of the books, peaceful corpses resting in their tombs, the Aesthetic quietly opened the door and entered the study of Astinus of Palanthas.