Kevin Stein - Brother's Majere

“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.

“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 Abyss!”

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 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.

Earwig stood atop Mereklar’s wall at the Westgate. 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.

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.