Finally growing bored with watching the Eye, however, Earwig glanced down below. That was boring, too. Mereklar had completely disappeared. Darkness engulfed the towers and buildings and streets, removing it from the ground as if it had never been. But the darkness wasn’t doing anything. It was just sitting there, and the kender yawned.
He thrust the tip of his hoopak down into the darkness, bringing it back out, checking it hopefully for a coating of horrible ooze or slime.
Nothing.
“I really don’t think this is being handled properly. I mean, if this is supposed to lead to the Abyss, it could at least look more … more … awful!”
Earwig paced the corner, searching for something entertaining, when a shimmer caught his eye-a shining staircase was slowly forming, sparkling motes of light spinning and coalescing into a solid object.
“Now that’s more like it!” he exclaimed and was about to hop down it when he heard a shout.
“Earwig! … Earwig!”
“Drat,” said the kender.
Caramon was yelling from his position on the other gate. The big man was jumping up and down to catch his friend’s attention, his distant figure distorted by the three moons.
“Hi!” Earwig yelled back, whirling his hoopak in the air, causing the leather thong to whistle loudly.
“Meet in the center!”
“What?”
“I said, meet me in the center!”
“The center of what?”
“The center of the city, you-” The last words were, fortunately, swallowed up in the darkness.
“That’s where I was going, before you interrupted me!” The kender said indignantly. Turning, he headed again for the magical stairs. “Boy, this is the last time I take him on any of my adventures!”
Holding his breath and pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger, the kender skipped down the stairway; the last sight of him on Krynn-his topknot of hair.
Glowering, not liking this in the least, Caramon stood at the top of the magical staircase that had appeared before him. He hesitated, gripping his sword tightly. He didn’t want to go down into the darkness. He knew that, if he did, he would meet his own death, and it would be a terrible one.
“But maybe Raist is down there. He’s alone. He needs me.”
Caramon put a foot on the stair. Then, deciding that-like bad-tasting medicine-it was best to drink it quickly and get it over with, the warrior ran full speed down the staircase.
Reaching the bottom, he stepped off and instantly red beams flared around him. One glanced off his arm, searing his flesh painfully. Caramon rolled on the ground and ducked into a nearby building, shutting the door behind him. Looking out a window, he could see three creatures, aiming red-glowing wands at him.
The creatures were bent and twisted, their bodies covered with fur. Their heads looked like the skulls of dead cats, teeth gleaming in a rictus grin. One of the demons, wearing a harness of some strange, glossy material with a silver medallion in the middle, shouted something in a strange language, pointing at the building where Caramon was hiding.
The demon’s voice, rough and hissing, reminded Caramon of a cat that could talk like a human. Moving slowly and as quietly as he could, the big man crept up the stairs.
Down below, he heard the door crash and saw a bolt of crimson flare in the room, scoring the back wall and setting furniture aflame.
Footsteps, claws scraping against the floor, padded through the room, searching. Then they began to ascend the stairs. A head appeared in Caramon’s view. It saw him the same time he saw it.
“Das-” it began to shout the alarm.
Caramon’s sword bit into its neck, the keen metal driving so far into the flesh that the blade plunged through the demon into the wall. The warrior yanked his blade free and pounded up the stairs that led to the third floor.
The hallway exploded with red light, shattering chairs and tables, sending splinters flying through the air. Caramon kept running. Another demon, growling in anger at missing its target, dashed up the stairs in pursuit.
Caramon waited in ambush at the head of the stairs, drew his throwing dagger, and tossed. The knife struck the demon point-blank in the chest.
Reaching up, irritated, the demon plucked it out of its black pelt.
“Huh? I guess that’s why Bast said to use the sword,” Caramon muttered.
He saw the wand aiming at him and threw himself to the floor. Red light burned through the room, over his head. Looking about wildly, the fighter discovered a portal in the ceiling, just low enough for him to reach. He pushed the wood-slatted cover off with his bastard sword, throwing the blade through it to land on the roof. Leaping up, he grabbed the edges of the portal and started to pull himself up.
Powerful hands grabbed hold of his ankles and jerked him to the floor. The demon’s paws smashed down onto his ears, stunning him. The creature extended its claws and cut down under the warrior’s armor, digging forward, dragging dirty talons through his flesh.
The pain brought Caramon to his senses, and he kicked up with his legs, knocking the demon over. Leaping after it, he tried to pin it to the floor. The demon slipped out of his hold, and Caramon scrambled backward.
His sword was high above him, and he cursed himself for his carelessness. Then he put his hand on something on the floor and, thinking he recognized it by its feel, he closed his fingers over it.
The demon reached for its wand, snarling in dismay when its clawed fingers closed on air.
“This what you lost?” Caramon said, holding up the weapon.
The demon leaped for it. The warrior brought his knee up straight at its stomach. The creature doubled over and Caramon clasped both arms around the demon in a bear hug, muscles straining against its dark fur, crushing until he felt bones snap beneath his grip. The body went limp. Dropping the corpse to the floor, the warrior leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. After a short time, he moved back up to the hole in the ceiling, lifting himself easily through the portal and onto the empty rooftop. Picking up his blade, he crawled to the edge and stared down to see if the other demon had returned with-
A powerful fist slammed across the side of his head, nearly sending him reeling over the edge of the roof. The demon, apparently uninjured, bared its fangs, biting deep into the human’s shoulder.
Caramon stifled his cry of pain for fear of alerting any others of its kind, and brought the hilt of his sword up into the demon’s chin, knocking it backward. The warrior slashed the bastard sword across in a horizontal arc, cleaving the head from furred shoulders.
White and silver spots danced before Caramon’s vision. His legs weakened and gave out under his weight, forcing him to sit down roughly on the smooth stone. Stretching himself out on the roof, closing his eyes to the image of the Great Eye, he swallowed, breathing hard.
“And there’s an army of these things!” he said with a groan.
In his room in Barnstoke Hall, Raistlin removed several black bags from his pack-flat pouches heavily lined with fur and other soft materials. He opened one of them to reveal an array of bottles and tubes, capped with cork and stoppered with rubber blocks, containing a variety of colored liquids and crystals and powders. Unfolding a brass frame used to store chemicals while working, he took the containers out from their holding straps and placed them into their proper locations-solids in front, liquids at the back.
Another pouch produced a shallow mixing dish with matching pestle and a glass bottle of clear liquid with a wick jutting from the top. From another he drew a melting pan and stand, and a smaller pan with a handle covered in wound leather. A third contained holding stands, tiny metal chains, and various silvered tools.