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watching as they melted together.
When they began to glow from the heat, he dropped the dried blood in, the flakes instantly disappearing with a puff of dirty smoke.
“Wait! There’s something missing,” he whispered, catching his error. Searching through his materials, he grew increasingly frustrated. “I cannot find it! And without the stone, this won’t work!”
Raistlin clutched a hand to his chest in frustration, tearing at the cloth, when he suddenly noticed something hard and round in one of his inner pockets — a disk on a chain. Hastily, he removed the object.
“The charm of good fortune the woman gave me,” he murmured. “I must definitely reconsider my position on tr# superstitious beliefs of peasants.”
Grasping the pestle, he smashed the amulet to pieces and picked out the stones he needed, throwing them into the crucible where they melted almost instantly. He poured the new substance onto a shallow plate, spreading it thin and letting it cool. Cracking noises filled the air. The substance shattered into fine dust as red as rubies, black at the center.
The sorcerer arched his back, feeling the vertebrae crack from stiffness. He had finally come to a point where he could relax for a moment. But even as he did so, he felt time running from between his fingers. He raised the melting pan onto its stand and chains, moving carefully so as not to disturb the powder ring. Scraping the red powder into a curved half-tube with a tapering tip, he slowly formed symbols of power against the white circle in the pan, one atop the other. When it was completed, he let the tube drop to the floor.
“The final stage,” Raistlin whispered.
He erected another stand around the melting pan, two
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wire legs with a connecting bar at the top. He pulled two metal link chains—covered in some black, slippery substance from an opaque bottle—and hung them from the legs, placing the gold tube into the curve at the lowest point, and stoppered the top with a golden cap.’
Lifting a small silver bell and hammer from the third pouch, he struck the bell with the hammer, listening carefully as its clear sound eventually died out. He struck again, nodding when there was silence.
The bell rang a third time—the clear, scintillating sound penetrating through the night. The mage listened as the echo slowly grew fainter and fainter, fading and disappearing until nothing was left.
Raistlin removed the cap and blew cool air through the tube. The symbols on the melting pan boiled and faded, melding and mixing into one another until their forms intertwined into a single sigil of power. Created through the destruction of its elements, the sigil settled against its white background and then rose upward in a flash as the gray ring flared alive with flame. Its essence coated the tube.
The mage replaced the cap, doused the flame, and leaned on the Staff of Magius for support. He breathed heavily, and lowered his head in fatigue. The ritual was complete.
Raistlin peered into the tube, saw that opaque brown crystals had formed on its inner surface—the proper result. No expression of satisfaction crossed his features, however. He raised the cowl up over his head, hiding the golden mask of his face in the darkness of his robes.
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CHAPTER 2 5
staneb IN WON&GK iNto ttjc (Jneaf Eye, which seemed to be reversed down here—it was black, glimmering with red and a small white dot in the center. Bolts of power arced through the cloudless heavens, reaching out with forked fingers to touch unknown spaces. He thought he might watch that wonderful sight forever—or least the next ten minutes—but an irritating voice inside him kept nagging at him to do something.
“But what, that’s the question? Oh, I remember! I’m supposed to meet Caramon in the center of town.”
Earwig was starting to turn the corner when he almost ran headlong into a group of twisted, demented-looking cats.
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The creatures certainly looked interesting. Earwig was considering going up and introducing himself when he remembered that he was on another Very Important Mission. He backed up hurriedly, therefore, sliding with kender agility into a shadow so that the cats wouldn’t be tempted to stop and chat.