Bast made a motion with his hand. Caramon, watching, caught his breath. He was no longer staring at men but at cats—all shapes and sizes. They curled around the legs of the Cat Lord, rubbing against him, awaiting his orders.
“They will fulfill the prophecy. The Great Eye begins to form.” Bast started to leave. At the entrance to the chamber, he turned. “Use only that sword, Cafamon Majere.” The Cat Lord pointed to the hand-and-a-half sword strapped to the warrior’s broad back. “I have enchanted it to slay the demons.”
“I thought you couldn’t aid us,” said Raistlin with some asperity.
Bast raised dark eyebrows. “A gift, in return for one he gave the fallen.” The Cat Lord held a ball in his hand. Round and yellow, its sequins sparkled in the light.
“What about me?” Earwig cried, disappointed. “Don’t I get an enchanted weapon?”
“You are a kender,” said the Lord of the Cats. “That is enchantment enough.” With that. Bast disappeared into the darkness, the cats following him.
“Wow!” said Earwig, eyes wide. “Did you hear that?”
Caramon drew his sword, staring at it suspiciously. He tested the balance with a rotating swing.
“I don’t like anyone messing with my weapons,” he muttered. “Not even gods.”
“Oh, boy! A fight! And this time no one’s going to cheat me out of being in it!” Earwig spun his hoopak in the air.
“Do you know what you have to do, my brother?” Raistlin asked.
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“No,” said Caramon bluntly. “I don’t understand a damn thing!”
“You must each find a place atop the city walls, over the gates. Caramon, you go over Eastgate. Earwig . . .” Raistlin paused to consider entrusting the fate of the world to a kender. He sighed. There was no help for it. “Earwig, you go above Westgate. When you’re inside, head for the center of the city, to the place in which we’re standing.”
Caramon’s face wrinkled in perplexity. “But, Raist! We’re already in the gates! We’re already standing in the center of the city.”
“You are standing in this city,” Raistlin corrected. “You must enter the one below. The one that resides in the Ajpyss!”
Earwig’s eyes opened wide in joy.
Caramon’s eyes opened wide.
“Once you are in this room, you must destroy whatever you find on top of that .” Raistlin pointed at the stone dais.
“How?”
“That you must discover for yourself, my brother!” the mage answered testily, turning. “Time grows short, and I have much to do.”
“But . . . you’re not coming with us?” Caramon reached to stop him. “I can’t let you go off by yourself!”
“You must, my brother,” said Raistlin.
“Where are you going?”
“Into an abyss of my own.”
The night sky was filled with stars, constellations of great powers watching in anticipation. The three moons
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moved slowly together. Solinari and Lunitari embraced each other first. The black sphere of Nuitari began to slide over their combined light, heading for the center of their unity, three flawless orbs starting to form the most wonderful and fearsome sight in the world: the Great Eye.
The power from three wizards long dead began to flood the land—water released to drown the world with magic. A canopy formed over the white walls of the city of Mereklar, a pointed cover whose apex rose in the middle, held above the hill in the center of Mereklar where a temple lay beneath earth and stone, buried for hundreds of years. Darkness choked the light from the stars, and even the sight of the Eye was dimmed, as if it were closing.
Recognizing what was happening, the gods of good acted as they had foreseen they must. The three gates of the city slammed closed and sealed shut, trapping everything within. When next they opened to the world—if they opened—they would do so at the command of the Dark Queen.
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CHAPTER 24
EawwMj stooD atop Meneklan’s wall at We WestQate. All around him it was dark but directly above him, the sky was clear and bright. He stood fascinated, watching the Great Eye glare down upon the land, casting shadows that flickered and moved like red and silver phantoms.