This is your doing, my Queen. His thoughts came grimly through a haze of pain. You dare not fight me openly. I am too strong for you on this—my plane—of existence! You have your foothold in this world. Even now, the Temple has appeared in its perverted form in Neraka. You have wakened the evil dragons. They are stealing the eggs of the good dragons. But the door remains closed, the Foundation Stone has been blocked by self-sacrificing love. And that was your mistake. For now, by your entry into our plane, you have made it possible for us to enter yours! I cannot reach you yet … you cannot reach me.… But the time will come … the time will come.…
“Are you unwell, Master?” came a frightened voice near him. “I am sorry we could not prevent them from harming you, but you moved too swiftly! Please, forgive us. Let us help—”
“There is nothing you can do!” Raistlin snarled, coughing. He felt the pain in his chest ease. “Leave me a moment.… Let me rest. Drive these others out of here.”
“Yes, Master.”
Closing his eyes, waiting for the horrible dizziness and pain to pass, Raistlin sat for an hour in the darkness, going over his plans in his mind. He needed two weeks of unbroken rest and study to prepare himself. That time he would find here easily enough. Crysania was his—she would follow him willingly, eagerly in fact, calling down the power of Paladine to assist him in opening the Portal and fighting the dread Guardians beyond.
He had the knowledge of Fistandantilus, knowledge accumulated by the mage over the ages. He had his own knowledge, too, plus the strength of his younger body. By the time he was ready to enter, he would be at the height of his powers—the greatest archmage ever to have lived upon Krynn!
The thought comforted him and gave him renewed energy. The dizziness subsided finally, the pain eased. Rising to his feet, he cast a quick glance about the laboratory. He recognized it, of course. It looked exactly the same as when he had entered it in a past that was now two hundred years in the future. Then he had come with power—as foretold. The gates had opened, the evil guardians had greeted him reverently—not attacked him.
As he walked through the laboratory, the Staff of Magius shining to light his way, Raistlin glanced about curiously. He noticed odd, puzzling changes. Everything should have been exactly as it was when he would arrive two hundred years from now. But a beaker now standing intact had been broken when he found it. A spellbook now resting on the large stone table, he had discovered on the floor.
“Do the guardians disturb things?” he asked the two who remained with him. His robes rustled about his ankles as he made his way to the very back of the huge laboratory, back to the Door That Was Never Opened.
“Oh, no, Master,” said one, shocked. “We are not permitted to touch anything.”
Raistlin shrugged. Lots of things could happen in two hundred years to account for such occurrences. “Perhaps an earthquake,” he said to himself, losing interest in the matter as he approached the shadows where the great Portal stood.
Raising the Staff of Magius, he shone its magical light ahead of him. The shadows fled the far corner of the laboratory, the corner where stood the Portal with its platinum carvings of the five dragon heads and its huge silver-steel door that no key upon Krynn could unlock.
Raistlin held the staff high … and gasped.
For long moments he could do nothing but stare, the breath wheezing in his lungs, his thoughts seething and burning. Then, his shrill scream of anger and rage and fury pierced the living fabric of the Tower’s darkness.
So dreadful was the cry, echoing through the dark corridors of the Tower, that the evil guardians cowered back into their shadows, wondering if perhaps their dread Queen had burst in upon them.
Caramon heard the cry as he entered the door at the bottom of the Tower. Shivering with sudden terror, he dropped the packages he carried and, with trembling hands, lit the torch he had brought. Then, the naked blade of his new sword in his hand, the big warrior raced up the stairs two at a time.
Bursting into the study, he saw Lady Crysania looking around in sleepy fearfulness.
“I heard a scream—” she said, rubbing her eyes and rising to her feet.
“Are you all right?” Caramon gasped, trying to catch his breath.
“Why, yes,” she said, looking startled, as she realized what he was thinking. “It wasn’t me. I must have fallen asleep. It woke me—”
“Where’s Raist?” Caramon demanded.
“Raistlin!” she repeated, alarmed, and started to push her way past Caramon when he caught hold of her.
“This is why you slept,” he said grimly, brushing fine white sand from her hair. “Sleep spell.”
Crysania blinked. “But why—”
“We’ll find out.”
“Warrior,” said a cold voice almost in his ear.
Whirling, Caramon thrust Crysania behind him, raising his sword as a black-robed, spectral figure materialized out of the darkness. “You seek the wizard? He is above, in the laboratory. He is in need of assistance, and we have been commanded not to touch him.”
“I’ll go,” Caramon said, “alone.”
“I’m coming with you,” Crysania said. “I will come with you,” she repeated firmly, in response to Caramon’s frown.
Caramon started to argue, then, remembering that she was a cleric of Paladine and had once before exerted her powers over these creatures of darkness, shrugged and gave in, though with little grace.
“What happened to him, if you were commanded not to touch him?” Caramon asked the spectre gruffly as he and Crysania followed it from the study out into the dark corridor. “Keep close to me,” he muttered to Crysania, but the command was not necessary.
If the darkness had seemed alive before, it throbbed and pulsed and jittered and jabbered with life now as the guardians, upset by the scream, thronged the corridors. Though he was now warmly dressed, having purchased clothes at the marketplace, Caramon shivered convulsively with the chill that flowed from their undead bodies. Beside him, Crysania shook so she could barely walk.
“Let me hold the torch,” she said through clenched teeth. Caramon handed her the torch, then encircled her with his right arm, drawing her near. She clasped her arm about him, both of them finding comfort in the touch of living flesh as they climbed the stairs after the spectre.
“What happened?” he asked again, but the spectre did not answer. It simply pointed up the spiral stairs.
Holding his sword in his left hand, his sword hand, Caramon and Crysania followed the spectre as it flowed up the stairs, the torchlight dancing and wavering.
After what seemed an endless climb, the two reached the top of the Tower of High Sorcery, both of them aching and frightened and chilled to the very heart.
“We must rest,” Caramon said through lips so numb he was practically inaudible. Crysania leaned against him, her eyes closed, her breath coming in labored gasps. Caramon himself did not think he could have climbed another stair, and he was in superb physical condition.
“Where is Raist—Fistandantilus?” Crysania stammered after her breathing had returned somewhat to normal.
“Within.” The spectre pointed again, this time to a closed door and, as it pointed, the door swung silently open.
Cold air flowed from the room in a dark wave, ruffling Caramon’s hair and blowing aside Crysania’s cloak. For a moment Caramon could not move. The sense of evil coming from within that chamber was overwhelming. But Crysania, her hand firmly clasped over the medallion of Paladine, began to walk forward.
Reaching out, Caramon drew her back. “Let me go first.”
Crysania smiled at him wearily. “In any other case but this, warrior,” she said, “I would grant you that privilege. But, here, the medallion I hold is as formidable a weapon as your sword.”
“You have no need for any weapon,” the spectre stated coldly. “The Master commanded us to see that you come to no harm. We will obey his request.”
“What if he’s dead?” Caramon asked
harshly, feeling Crysania stiffen in fear beside him.
“If he had died,” the spectre replied, its eyes gleaming, “your warm blood would already be upon our lips. Now enter.”
Hesitantly, Crysania pressed close beside him, Caramon entered the laboratory. Crysania lifted the torch, holding it high, as both paused, looking around.
“There,” Caramon whispered, the innate closeness that existed between the twins leading him to find the dark mass, barely visible on the floor at the back of the laboratory.
Her fears forgotten, Crysania hurried forward, Caramon following more slowly, his eyes warily scanning the darkness.
Raistlin lay on his side, his hood drawn over his face. The Staff of Magius lay some distance from him, its light gone out, as though Raistlin—in bitter anger—had hurled it from him. In its flight, it had, apparently, broken a beaker and knocked a spellbook to the floor.
Handing Caramon the torch, Crysania knelt beside the mage and felt for the lifebeat in his neck. It was weak and irregular, but he lived. She sighed in relief, then shook her head. “He’s all right. But I don’t understand. What happened to him?”
“He is not hurt physically,” the spectre said, hovering near them. “He came to this part of the laboratory as though looking for something. And then he walked over here, muttering about a portal. Holding his staff high, he stood where he lies now, staring straight ahead. Then he screamed, hurled the staff from him, and fell to the floor, cursing in fury until he lost consciousness.”
Puzzled, Caramon held the torch up. “I wonder what could have happened?” he murmured. “Why, there’s nothing here! Nothing but a bare, blank wall!”
CHAPTER
6
ow has he been?” Crysania asked softly as she entered the room. Drawing back the white hood from her head, she untied her cloak to allow Caramon to remove it from around her shoulders.
“Restless,” the warrior replied with a glance toward a shadowed corner. “He has been impatient for your return.”
Crysania sighed and bit her lip. “I wish I had better news,” she murmured.
“I’m glad you don’t,” Caramon said grimly, folding Crysania’s cloak over a chair. “Maybe he’ll give up this insane idea and come home.”
“I can’t—” began Crysania, but she was interrupted.
“If you two are quite finished with whatever it is you are doing there in the darkness, perhaps you will come tell me what you discovered, lady.”
Crysania flushed deeply. Casting an irritated glance at Caramon, she hurried across the room to where Raistlin lay on a pallet near the fire.
The mage’s rage had been costly. Caramon had carried him from the laboratory where they’d found him lying before the empty stone wall to the study. Crysania had made up a bed on the floor, then watched, helplessly, as Caramon ministered to his brother as gently as a mother to a sick child. But there was little even the big man could do for his frail twin. Raistlin lay unconscious for over a day, muttering strange words in his sleep. Once he wakened and cried out in terror, but he immediately sank back into whatever darkness he wandered.
Bereft of the light of the staff that even Caramon dared not touch and was forced to leave in the laboratory, he and Crysania sat huddled near Raistlin. They kept the fire burning brightly, but both were always conscious of the presence of the shadows of the guardians of the Tower, waiting, watching.
Finally, Raistlin awoke. With his first breath, he ordered Caramon to prepare his potion and, after drinking this, was able to send one of the guardians to fetch the staff. Then he beckoned to Crysania. “You must go to Astinus,” he whispered.
“Astinus!” Crysania repeated in blank astonishment. “The historian? But why—I don’t understand—”
Raistlin’s eyes glittered, a spot of color burned into his pale cheek with feverish brilliance. “The Portal is not here!” he snarled, grinding his teeth in impotent fury. His hands clenched and almost immediately he began to cough. He glared at Crysania.
“Don’t waste my time with fool questions! Just go!” he commanded in such terrible anger that she shrank away, startled. Raistlin fell back, gasping for breath.
Caramon glanced up at Crysania in concern. She walked to the desk, staring down unseeing at some of the tattered and blackened spellbooks that lay upon it.
“Now wait just a minute, lady,” Caramon said softly, rising and coming to her. “You’re not really considering going? Who is this Astinus anyway? And how do you plan to get through the Grove without a charm?”
“I have a charm,” Crysania murmured, “given to me by your brother when—when we first met. As for Astinus, he is the keeper of the Great Library of Palanthas, the Chronicler of the History of Krynn.”
“He may be that in our time, but he won’t be there now!” Caramon said in exasperation. “Think, lady!”
“I am thinking,” Crysania snapped, glancing at him in anger. “Astinus is known as the Ageless One. He was first to set foot upon Krynn, so the legends say, and he will be the last to leave it.”
Caramon regarded her skeptically.
“He records all history as it passes. He knows everything that has happened in the past and is happening in the present. But”—Crysania glanced at Raistlin with a worried look—“he cannot see into the future. So I’m not certain what help he can be to us.”
Caramon, still dubious and obviously not believing half of this wild tale, had argued long against her going. But Crysania only grew more determined, until, finally, even Caramon realized they had no choice. Raistlin grew worse instead of better. His skin burned with fever, he lapsed into periods of incoherence and, when he was himself, angrily demanded to know why Crysania hadn’t been to see Astinus yet.
So she had braved the terrors of the Grove and the equally appalling terrors of the streets of Palanthas. Now she knelt beside the mage’s bed, her heart aching as she watched him struggle to sit up—with his brother’s help—his glittering gaze fixed eagerly upon her.
“Tell me everything!” he ordered hoarsely. “Exactly as it occurred. Leave out nothing.”
Nodding wordlessly, still shaken by the terrifying walk through the Tower, Crysania tried to force herself to calm down and sort out her thoughts.
“I went to the Great Library and—and asked to see Astinus,” she began, nervously smoothing the folds of the plain, white robe Caramon had brought her to replace the blood-stained gown she had worn. “The Aesthetics refused to admit me, but then I showed them the medallion of Paladine. That threw them into confusion, as you might well imagine.” She smiled. “It has been a hundred years since any sign of the old gods has come, so, finally, one hurried off to report to Astinus.
“After waiting for some time, I was taken to his chamber where he sits all day long and many times far into the night, recording the history of the world.” Crysania paused, suddenly frightened at the intensity of Raistlin’s gaze. It seemed he would snatch the words from her heart, if he could.
Looking away for a moment to compose herself, she continued, her own gaze now on the fire. “I entered the room, and he—he just sat there, writing, ignoring me. Then the Aesthetic who was with me announced my name, ‘Crysania of the House of Tarinius,’ as you told me to tell him. And then—”
She stopped, frowning slightly.
Raistlin stirred. “What?”
“Astinus looked up then,” Crysania said in a puzzled tone, turning to face Raistlin. “He actually ceased writing and laid his pen down. And he said, ‘You!’ in such a thundering voice that I was startled and the Aesthetic with me nearly fainted. But before I could say anything or ask what he meant or even how he knew me, he picked up his pen and—going to the words he had just written—crossed them out!”
“Crossed them out,” Raistlin repeated thoughtfully, his eyes dark and abstracted. “Crossed them out,” he murmured, sinking back down onto his pallet.
Seeing Raistlin absorbed in his thoughts, Crysania kept quiet until he looked up at her again.
“What did he do then?” the mage asked weakly.
“He wrote something down over the place where he had made the error, if that’s what it was. Then he raised his gaze to mine again and I thought he was going to be angry. So did the Aesthetic, for I could feel him shaking. But Astinus was quite calm. He dismissed the Aesthetic and bade me sit down. Then he asked why I had come.
“I told him we were seeking the Portal. I added, as you instructed, that we had received information that led us to believe it was located in the Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas, but that, upon investigation, we had discovered our information was wrong. The Portal was not there.
“He nodded, as if this did not surprise him. ‘The Portal was moved when the Kingpriest attempted to take over the Tower. For safety’s sake, of course. In time, it may return to the Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas, but it is not there now.’
“ ‘Where is it, then?’ I asked.
“For long moments, he did not answer me. And then—” Here Crysania faltered and glanced over at Caramon fearfully, as if warning him to brace himself.
Seeing her look, Raistlin pushed himself up on the pallet. “Tell me!” he demanded harshly.
Crysania drew a deep breath. She would have looked away, but Raistlin caught hold of her wrist and, despite his weakness, held her so firmly, she found she could not break free of his deathlike grip.
“He—he said such information would cost you. Every man has his price, even he.”
“Cost me!” Raistlin repeated inaudibly, his eyes burning.
Crysania tried unsuccessfully to free herself as his grasp tightened painfully.
“What is the cost?” Raistlin demanded.
“He said you would know!” Crysania gasped. “He said you had promised it to him, long ago.”
Raistlin loosed her wrist. Crysania sank back away from him, rubbing her arm, avoiding Caramon’s pitying gaze. Abruptly, the big man rose to his feet and stalked away. Ignoring him, ignoring Crysania, Raistlin sank back onto his frayed pillows, his face pale and drawn, his eyes suddenly dark and shadowed.
War of the Twins Page 7
