Test of the Twins

by Margaret Weis

  There it was—the confirmation of his fears, the sealing of his doom.

  A new constellation in the sky.

  An hourglass.…

  “What does it mean?” asked Tas, rubbing his eyes and staring sleepily up at the stars, only half awake.

  “It means Raistlin succeeded,” Caramon answered with an odd mixture of fear, sorrow, and pride in his voice. “It means he entered the Abyss and challenged the Queen of Darkness and—defeated her!”

  “Not defeated her, Caramon,” said Tas, studying the sky intently and pointing. “There’s her constellation, but it’s in the wrong place. It’s over there when it should be over here. And there’s Paladine.” He sighed. “Poor Fizban. I wonder if he had to fight Raistlin. I don’t think he’d like that. I always had the feeling that he understood Raistlin, perhaps better than any of the rest of us.”

  “So maybe the battle is still going on,” Caramon mused. “Perhaps that’s the reason for the storms.” He was silent for a moment, staring up at the glittering shape of the hourglass. In his mind, he could see his brother’s eyes as they had been when he emerged—so long ago—from the terrible test in the Tower of High Sorcery—the pupils of the eyes had become the shape of hourglasses.

  “Thus, Raistlin, you will see time as it changes all things,” Par-Salian had told him. “Thus, hopefully, you will gain compassion for those around you.”

  But it hadn’t worked.

  “Raistlin won,” Caramon said with a soft sigh. “He’s what he wanted to be—a god. And now he rules over a dead world”

  “Dead world?” Tas said in alarm. “D-do you mean the whole world’s like this? Everything in Krynn—Palanthas and Haven and Qualinesti? K-kendermore? Everything?”

  “Look around,” Caramon said bleakly. “What do you think? Have you seen any other living being since we’ve been here?” He waved a hand that was barely visible by the pale light of Solinari, visible now that the clouds were gone, shining like a staring eye in the sky. “You watched the fire sweep the mountainside. I can see the lightning now, on the horizon.” He pointed east. “And there, another storm coming. No, Tas. Nothing can live through this. We’ll be dead ourselves before long—either blown to bits or—”

  “Or … or something else …” Tas said miserably. “I—I really don’t feel good, Caramon. And it—it’s either the water or I’m getting the plague again.” His face twisting in pain, he put his hand on his stomach. “I’m beginning to feel all funny inside, like I swallowed a snake.”

  “The water,” said Caramon with a grimace. “I’m feeling it, too. Probably some kind of poison from those clouds.”

  “Are—are we just going to die here then, Caramon?” Tas asked after a minute of silent contemplation. “Because, if we are, I really think I’d like to go over and lie down next to Tika, if you don’t mind. It—it would make me feel more at home. Until I got to Flint and his tree.” Sighing, he rested his head against Caramon’s strong arm. “I’ll certainly have a lot to tell Flint, won’t I, Caramon? All about the Cataclysm and the fiery mountain and me saving your life and Raistlin becoming a god. I’ll bet he won’t believe that part. But maybe you’ll be there with me, Caramon, and you can tell him I’m truly not, well—er—exaggerating.”

  “Dying would certainly be easy,” Caramon murmured, looking wistfully over in the direction of the obelisk.

  Lunitari was rising now, its blood-red light blending with the deathly white light of Solinari to shed an eerie purplish radiance down upon the ash-covered land. The stone obelisk, wet with rain, glistened in the moonlight, its crudely carved black letters starkly visible against the pallid surface.

  “It would be easy to die,” Caramon repeated, more to himself than to Tas. “It would be easy to lie down and let the darkness take me.” Then, gritting his teeth, he staggered to his feet. “Funny,” he added as he drew his sword and began to hack a branch off the fallen vallenwood they had been using as shelter. “Raist asked me that once. ‘Would you follow me into darkness?’ he said.”

  “What are you doing?” Tas asked, staring at Caramon curiously.

  But Caramon didn’t answer. He just kept hacking away at the tree branch.

  “You’re making a crutch!” Tas said, then jumped to his feet in sudden alarm. “Caramon! You can’t be thinking that! That—that’s crazy! I remember when Raistlin asked you that question and I remember his answer when you told him yes! He said it would be the death of you, Caramon! As strong as you are, it would kill you!”

  Caramon still did not reply. Wet wood flew as he sawed at the tree branch. Occasionally he glanced behind him at the new storm clouds that were approaching, slowly obliterating the constellations and creeping toward the moons.

  “Caramon!” Tas grabbed the big man’s arm. “Even if you went … there”—the kender found he couldn’t speak the name—“what would you do?”

  “Something I should have done a long time ago,” Caramon said resolutely.

  CHAPTER

  4

  ou’re going after him, aren’t you?” Tas cried, scrambling out of the hole—a move which, more or less, put him at eye-level with Caramon, who was still chopping away at the branch. “That’s crazy, just crazy! How will you get there?” A sudden thought struck him. “Where is there anyway? You don’t even know where you’re going! You don’t know where he is!”

  “I have a way to get there,” Caramon said coolly, putting his sword back in its sheath. Taking the branch in his strong hands, he bent and twisted it and finally succeeded in breaking it off. “Lend me your knife,” he muttered to Tas.

  The kender handed it over with a sigh, starting to continue his protest as Caramon trimmed off small twigs, but the big man interrupted him.

  “I have the magical device. As for where there is”—he eyed Tas sternly—“you know that!”

  “The—the Abyss?” Tas faltered.

  A dull boom of thunder made them both look apprehensively at the approaching storm, then Caramon returned to his work with renewed vigor while Tas returned to his argument. “The magical device got Gnimsh and me out of there, Caramon, but I’m positive it won’t get you in. You don’t want to go there anyway,” the kender added resolutely. “It is not a nice place.”

  “Maybe it can’t get me in,” Caramon began, then motioned Tas over to him. “Let’s see if this crutch I’ve made works before another storm hits. We’ll walk over to Tika’s—the obelisk.”

  Slashing off a part of his muddy wet cloak with his sword, the warrior bundled it over the top of the branch, tucked it under his arm and leaned his weight on it experimentally. The crude crutch sank into the mud several inches. Caramon yanked it out and took another step. It sank again, but he managed to move forward at least a little and keep his weight off his injured knee. Tas came over to help him walk and, hobbling along slowly, they inched their way across the wet, slimy ground.

  Where are we going? Tas longed to ask, but he was afraid to hear the answer. For once, he didn’t find it hard to keep quiet. Unfortunately, Caramon seemed to hear his thoughts, for he answered his unspoken question.

  “Maybe that device can’t get me into the Abyss,” Caramon repeated, breathing heavily, “but I know someone who can. The device’ll take us to him.”

  “Who?” the kender asked dubiously.

  “Par-Salian. He’ll be able to tell us what has happened. He’ll be able to send me … wherever I need to go.”

  “Par-Salian?” Tas looked almost as alarmed as if Caramon had said the Queen of Darkness herself. “That’s even crazier!” he started to say, only he was suddenly violently sick instead. Caramon paused to wait for him, looking pale and ill in the moonlight himself.

  Convinced that he had thrown up everything inside him from his topknot down to his socks, Tas felt a little better. Nodding at Caramon, too tired to talk just yet, he managed to stagger on.

  Trudging through the slime and the mud, they reached the obelisk. Both slumped down on the ground and leaned agai
nst it, exhausted by the exertion even that short journey of only twenty or so paces had cost them. The hot wind was rising again, the sound of thunder getting nearer. Sweat covered Tas’s face and he had a green tinge around his lips, but he managed nonetheless, to smile at Caramon with what he hoped was innocent appeal.

  “Us going to see Par-Salian?” he said offhandedly, mopping his face with his topknot. “Oh, I don’t think that would be a good idea at all. You’re in no shape to walk all that way. We don’t have any water or food and—”

  “I’m not going to walk.” Caramon took the pendant out of his pocket and begin the transformation process that would turn it into a beautiful, jeweled sceptre.

  Seeing this and gulping slightly, Tas continued on talking more rapidly.

  “I’m certain Par-Salian is—uh—is … busy. Busy! That’s it!” He gave a ghastly grin. “Much too busy to see us now. Probably lots of things to do, what with all this chaos going on around him. So let’s just forget this and go back to someplace in time where we had fun. How about when Raistlin put the charm spell on Bupu and she fell in love with him? That was really funny! That disgusting gully dwarf following him around.…”

  Caramon didn’t reply. Tas twisted the end of his topknot around his finger.

  “Dead,” he said suddenly, heaving a mournful sigh. “Poor Par-Salian. Probably dead as a doorknob. After all,” the kender pointed out cheerfully, “he was old when we saw him back in 356. He didn’t look at all well then, either. This must have been a real shock to him—Raistlin becoming a god and all. Probably too much for his heart. Bam—he probably just keeled right over.”

  Tas peeped up at Caramon. There was a slight smile on the big man’s lips, but he said nothing, just kept turning and twisting the pieces of the pendant. A bright flash of lightning made him start. He glanced at the storm, his smile vanishing.

  “I’ll bet the Tower of High Sorcery’s not even there anymore!” Tas cried in desperation. “If what you say is right and the whole world is … is like this”—he waved his small hand as the foul-smelling rain began to fall—“then the Tower must have been one of the first places to go! Struck by lightning! Blooey! After all, the Tower’s much taller than most trees I’ve seen—”

  “The Tower’ll be there,” Caramon said grimly, making the final adjustment to the magical device. He held it up. Its jewels caught the rays of Solinari and, for an instant, gleamed with radiance. Then the storm clouds swept over the moon, devouring it. The darkness was now intense, split only by the brilliant, beautiful, deadly lightning.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, Caramon grabbed his crutch and struggled to his feet. Tas followed more slowly, gazing at Caramon miserably.

  “You see, Tas, I’ve come to know Raistlin,” Caramon continued, ignoring the kender’s woebegone expression. “Too late, maybe, but I know him now. He hated that Tower, just as he hated those mages for what they did to him there. But even as he hates it, he loves it all the same—because it is part of his Art, Tas. And his Art, his magic, means more to him than life itself. No, the Tower will be there.”

  Lifting the device in his hands, Caramon began the chant, “ ‘Thy time is thine own. Though across it you travel—’ ”

  But he was interrupted.

  “Oh, Caramon!” Tas wailed, clutching at him. “Don’t take me back to Par-Salian! He’ll do something awful to me! I know it! He might turn me into a—a bat!” Tas paused. “And, while I suppose it might be interesting being a bat, I’m not certain I could get used to sleeping upside down, hanging by my feet. And I am rather fond of being a kender, now that I think of it, and—”

  “What are you talking about?” Caramon glared at him, then glanced up at the storm clouds. The rain was increasing in fury, the lightning striking nearer.

  “Par-Salian!” cried Tas frantically. “I—I messed up his magical time-traveling spell! I went when I wasn’t supposed to! And then I stol—er—found a magical ring that someone had left lying about and it turned me into a mouse! I’m certain he must be rather peeved over that! And then I—I broke the magical device, Caramon. Remember? Well, it wasn’t exactly my fault, Raistlin made me break it! But a really strict person might take the unfortunate attitude that if I had left it alone in the first place—like I knew I was supposed to—then that wouldn’t have happened. And Par-Salian seems an awfully strict sort of person, don’t you think? And while I did have Gnimsh fix it, he didn’t fix it quite right, you know—”

  “Tasslehoff,” said Caramon tiredly, “shut up.”

  “Yes, Caramon,” Tas said meekly, with a snuffle.

  Caramon looked at the small dejected figure reflected in the bright lightning and sighed. “Look, Tas, I won’t let Par-Salian do anything to you. I promise. He’ll have to turn me into a bat first.”

  “Truly?” asked Tas anxiously.

  “My word,” said Caramon, his eyes on the storm. “Now, give me your hand and let’s get out of here.”

  “Sure,” said Tas cheerfully, slipping his small hand into Caramon’s large one.

  “And Tas …”

  “Yes, Caramon?”

  “This time—think of the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth! No moons!”

  “Yes, Caramon,” Tas said with a profound sigh. Then he smiled again. “You know,” he said to himself as Caramon began to recite the chant again, “I’ll bet Caramon would make a whopping big bat—”

  They found themselves standing at the edge of a forest.

  “It’s not my fault, Caramon!” Tas said quickly. “I thought about the Tower with all my heart and soul. I’m certain I never thought once about a forest.”

  Caramon stared intently into the woods. It was still night, but the sky was clear, though storm clouds were visible on the horizon. Lunitari burned a dull, smoldering red. Solinari was dropping down into the storm. And above them, the starry hourglass.

  “Well, we’re in the right time period. But where in the name of the gods are we?” Caramon muttered, leaning on his crutch and glaring at the magical device irritably. His gaze went back to the shadowy trees, their trunks visible in the garish moonlight. Suddenly, his expression cleared. “It’s all right, Tas,” he said in relief. “Don’t you recognize this? It’s Wayreth Forest—the magical forest that stands guard around the Tower of High Sorcery!”

  “Are you sure?” Tas asked doubtfully. “It certainly doesn’t look the same as the last time I saw it. Then it was all ugly, with dead trees lurking about, staring at me, and when I tried to go inside it wouldn’t let me and when I tried to leave it wouldn’t let me and—”

  “This is it,” Caramon muttered, folding the sceptre back into its nondescript pendant shape again.

  “Then what happened to it?”

  “The same thing that happened to the rest of the world, Tas,” Caramon replied, carefully slipping the pendant back into the leather pouch.

  Tas’s thoughts went back to the last time he had seen the magical Forest of Wayreth. Set to guard the Tower of High Sorcery from unwelcome intruders, the Forest was a strange and eerie place. For one thing, a person didn’t find the magical forest—it found you. And the first time it had found Tas and Caramon was right after Lord Soth had cast the death spell on Lady Crysania. Tas had wakened from a sound sleep to discover the Forest standing where no forest had been the night before!

  The trees then had appeared to be dead. Their limbs were bare and twisted, a chill mist flowed from beneath their trunks. Inside dwelt dark and shadowy shapes. But the trees hadn’t been dead. In fact, they had the uncanny habit of following a person. Tas remembered trying to walk away from the Forest, only to continually find himself—no matter what direction he traveled—always walking into it.

  That had been spooky enough, but when Caramon walked into the Forest, it had changed dramatically. The dead trees began to grow, turning into vallenwoods! The Forest was transformed from a dark and forbidding wood filled with death into a beautiful green and golden forest of life. Birds sang sweetly in th
e branches of the vallenwoods, inviting them inside.

  And now the Forest had changed again. Tas stared at it, puzzled. It seemed to be both forests he remembered—yet neither of them. The trees appeared dead, their twisted limbs were stark and bare. But, as he watched, he thought he saw them move in a manner that seemed very much alive! Reaching out, like grasping arms.…

  Turning his back on the spooky Forest of Wayreth, Tas investigated his surroundings. All else was exactly as it had been in Solace. No other trees stood at all—living or dead. He was surrounded by nothing but blackened, blasted stumps. The ground was covered with the same slimy, gray mud. For as far as he could see, in fact, there was nothing but desolation and death.…

  “Caramon,” Tas cried suddenly, pointing.

  Caramon glanced over. Beside one of the stumps lay a huddled figure.

  “A person!” Tas cried in wild excitement. “Someone else is here!”

  “Tas!” Caramon called out warningly, but before he could stop him, the kender was dashing over.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “Hullo! Are you asleep? Wake up.” Reaching down, he shook the figure, only to have it roll over at his touch, lying stiff and rigid.

  “Oh!” Tas took a step backward, then stopped. “Oh, Caramon,” he said softly. “It’s Bupu!”

  Once, long ago, Raistlin had befriended the gully dwarf. Now she stared up at the starlit sky with empty, sightless eyes. Dressed in filthy, ragged clothing, her small body was pitifully thin, her grubby face wasted and gaunt. Around her neck was a leather thong. Attached to the end of the thong was a stiff, dead lizard. In one hand, she clutched a dead rat, in the other she held a dried-up chicken leg. As death approached, she had summoned up all the magic she possessed, Tas thought sadly, but it hadn’t helped.

  “She hasn’t been dead long,” Caramon said. Limping over, he knelt down painfully beside the shabby little corpse. “Looks like she starved to death.” He reached out his hand and gently closed the staring eyes. Then he shook his head. “I wonder how she came to live this long? The bodies we saw back in Solace must have been dead months, at least.”