The Magus laughed. “Oh, do glare at me, girl. Really, you should feel flattered and honored. Your power will be going to serve Alta far more effectively than that trivial ability of yours to speak with animals ever could. Or—well, it goes to serve the Magi, but soon enough our welfare and that of Alta will be one and the same, so it hardly matters. First—” He made a few more passes in the air, and this time Kiron’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he saw the fingers leaving trails of glow in the air where they had passed, forming, for just one moment, signs and glyphs. “—first, I will bring the Eye up to full speed. I have already used some of your power, oh, about half of it, to clear the storm out of the skies over the Tower, so that the Eye has some sunlight to work with. I will use the rest of your power to keep the sky over the Tower clear forever, no matter what the season, by making a link between the earth and air energies, using the Eye itself as the physical aspect of that link. Never again will the rains prevent us from using the Eye to punish those who defy and endanger us. Just think! As long as the sun shines, the Eye will always be usable by daylight after this! Then, when I am finished with you—well, by then that pesky Tian army under the command of our renegades will be at the Fourth Ring, and I will proceed to use the Eye to remove them all from our consideration. Do you understand now what your trivial sacrifice is—”

The Magus stopped in midsentence, and stared out the window somewhere behind Aket-ten. “—what in the—”

Kiron strained his ears, and thought he heard faint and far-off crashes, screams.

“Curse them all to Seft!” the Magus exclaimed angrily. “Wretched dragons! I knew we should have exterminated them all while we had the chance!”

They’ve begun! Kiron thought, with a lift of his heart. The others had begun the attack on the forces surrounding the Temple of All Gods, using the jars of Akkadian Fire. They could not have chosen a better moment to mount their distraction.

“Well, we’ll just have to speed this up so I can exterminate them now,” the Magus muttered under his breath. “Burn the vermin out of the sky—about time—should have been done years ago.” He made a few more passes, and this time the glowing lines he left in the air hung there and stayed. And then, as the Eye spun faster and faster, it, too, began to emit light, until a glowing blur hung in its place.

“And now, girl, it’s time for you to fulfill your destiny,” the Magus said, and turned his back on Kiron’s hiding place.