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→BOOK 3: Link
====BOOK 3====
The companions depart for Neraka and meet up with Fizban and the golden dragon [[Pyrite]] (who "polymorphs" into a statue so that he can be carried for the trip). During the trip, Berem runs off and is soon tracked to a rock face with a narrow tunnel. Flint is the first through and the first to enter the bowl shaped, boulder strewn valley known as [[Godshome]]. During the chase, Flint's heart gives out and he collapses. Berem, hearing Flint cry out, rushes back to help him and reaches the [[Canon:Dwarf (Dragonlance)|dwarf]] just as Tanis emerges into the valley. As he lies dying, the old dwarf reveals he has had a heart condition that has been acting up and he says farewell to his friends. Looking at Fizban, he claims to at last understand who the old wizard is and asks that he ensure he doesn't have to journey alone. Fizban promises and the old dwarf dies. Fizban then carries Flint to a pool of glassy black rock in the center of the valley, a rock which seems to hold the image of all the stars and moons. Reaching the center of the rock, the pair vanish before Tanis' eyes. In the rock, the constellation of Paladine (which had vanished in the first book of the series) returns to the sky, though when Tanis looks up he still can't see it.
Berem finally decides to tell the companions his full story. He explains he was born near Neraka only a few years before the [[Cataclysm]]. He had a sister name Jasla and one day they discovered a jeweled column half-buried in the ground. This was in fact the foundation stone of the [[Kingpriest's temple]] and it had landed there after being hurled through various planes of existence. When Berem was overcome with greed and proceeded to pry one of the emeralds loose but Jasla sensed the sacred aura of the place. They struggled and Jasla died when she fell against the column. The Queen of Darkness herself then manifested and seared the emerald into Berem's chest as a reward for freeing him, revealing that this column is like a doorway to the Abyss. Jasla's pure spirit, however, remains with the column and she blocks the Dark Majesty's escape, telling Berem to run as a new Temple of Takhisis is built around the site. Since that day, Takhisis's true goal has been to use the Everman to break his sister's enchantment upon the column and fully return to the world.
