The gods of magic, their moons gone from the skies, entered Dargaard Keep. Lord Soth was not there. He and his warriors were riding on the wings of fury to the Tower of Wayreth. The Forest of Wayreth was gone. The wizards who had gathered in the Tower for the Night of the Eye were bereft of their magic and would be vulnerable to the death knight's horrific attack. Their joyous celebration might well end in bloody death and the destruction of their Tower.
That could not be helped, however. Takhisis must be fooled into thinking that the moon gods had fallen victim to her plot, that they had battled the three new Gods of the Gray and been slain by them. Warned in advance by Raistlin Majere, the three had come to the Tower to meet those new gods and ambush them when they tried to enter the world.
"Our world," said Lunitari, and the other two echoed her.
The banshees hid away in terror at the coming of the gods. Kitiara was in the bedroom, asleep, dreaming of the Crown of Power.
The gods went at once to the chamber Raistlin had described to them, passing through stone and earth to reach it. They entered the vault and gathered around the sole object in the room, the Hourglass of Stars. They watched the sands of the future glitter and sparkle in the top half of the hourglass. The other was dark and empty.
Suddenly Nuitari pointed. "A face in the darkness!" he said. "One of the interlopers is coming!"
"I see one as well," said Solinari.
"And I see the third," said Lunitari.
The gods gathered the magic, drawing it from all parts of world, grasping the fire and the lightning bolt, the tempest and the hurricane, the blinding dark and the blinding light, and they entered the hourglass to challenge their foes.
But when they were inside the blackness into which the stars fell, the gods of magic saw no foe. They saw only each other and, in the distance, the stars glittering far above them. As they watched, the stars began to spin, slowly at first, then faster, whirling around a black vortex, spiraling away from them.
And all around them was darkness and silence, utter and eternal. They could no longer hear the song of the universe. They could no longer hear the voices of their fellow gods. They could no longer hear each other. Each could see the others falling away, being pulled into the emptiness. The three tried to reach out to each other, to grab hold, but they were falling much too fast. They desperately sought some way to escape, only to realize there was no escape.
They had fallen into a maelstrom-a maelstrom in time that would keep spinning and spinning, dragging down the stars, one by one, until the end of all things.
Their hands could not touch, but their thoughts could.
A mirror image, Solinari thought bitterly. There are no other gods. We looked into the hourglass and saw ourselves.
Trapped in time, Nuitari raved. Trapped for eternity. Raistlin Majere duped us. He betrayed us to Takhisis!
No, thought Lunitari in sorrow and despair, Raistlin was duped as well.