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Her voice was soft and lulling. She continued to speak, but her words seemed to blur together in a warm, relaxing song. Eventually Daine closed his eyes and dropped into another world.

A glowing halo lay before him, a wreath of light hanging in a field of utter darkness. As he studied it, he saw that it was composed of glittering particles. There must have been billions, yet somehow he could see each and every one; his eyes were unnaturally sharp, and though each particle was no larger than a grain of sand, with every passing second they became clearer.

Where was he? He tried to turn his head and found that he couldn’t. It was then that he realized he had no body. He could sense his surroundings, yet there was no he there; he simply knew what was around him. It’s like a dream, he thought.

It is a dream. It was Lakashtai’s voice—or her thoughts. But it is more than that. It is all dreams. Every point of light is a dreamer, drawn from the waking world into this realm of Dal Quor.

Daine struggled to grasp the concept. So this is … another world?

Your sages would call it another plane of existence. It is a shadow of the material world, a place that exists in the minds and souls of all living things. It is always there, always a part of you, but it is when you sleep that you open up that gateway, forming your own world in Dal Quor—the fortress of your dreams.

You’re saying that when I see Lei in my dreams, it’s really Lei, Daine thought.

No. You create your own dreams, shaping them from memories, hopes, fears. As does Lei. You are two different points of light, two different worlds, each as deep and rich as Eberron itself.

Daine pondered. What does this have to do with us? Or this Tashana?

Dal Quor is a mutable realm, a place where thought becomes reality, but the mortal spirit only has the strength to shape its outermost regions. Those lights that you see are the distant edges of the region of dreams. Look deeper.

Daine directed his attention toward the ring of lights. At first he saw nothing beyond the glittering halo. Then he realized … the darkness within the circle of lights was deeper than the void that surrounded it. Both were jet black, but the darkness within—it was more than just empty shadow. There was something there … a presence.

Look closer.

Then he was falling toward the shadow, the ring of lights becoming larger and larger with each passing second. He now saw that each glittering speck, though they had seemed like grains of sand, were the size of worlds—that he’d been watching from an almost unimaginable distance. He began to see details within the central darkness. Textures. Shapes. A vast landscape stretching out around him. A river of tar flowed through a wasteland of jagged black marble. An orchard of skeletal darkwood trees swayed to a ghostly breeze. Tendrils of dark smoke crawled along the surface, as if driven by a conscious mind, then it all changed. The marble plain dissolved into a desert of black sand, and the trees were consumed by flames that seemed to draw in the darkness instead of releasing any light. Faces emerged from the surface of the desert, visages of sand twisted in silent screams. Daine tried to look away, but he couldn’t; he had no eyes to close.

This is the heart of Dal Quor. It is a living thing, though not in a way we understand the word. It is a spiritual force that dwarfs worlds, a hungry god that yearns to devour the hopes and dreams of all mortals. It is the cradle of nightmares, and it lurks just beyond your dreams, just beyond the edge of your mind. This is il-Lashtavar.

So this is what’s been attacking my mind, Daine thought.

Not exactly. Il-Lashtavar is the source of all darkness. It is the force that shapes Dal Quor, but it is too vast, too alien, to focus on your mind directly; it is a whirlwind, and you are a mere mote of dust. So it spawned children to do its bidding. Look again.

The dark desert rose up in a massive sandstorm. The sand turned to mist, which drifted away, revealing a citadel of