War of the Twins

by Margaret Weis

  You have done such that even Paladine might be tempted to turn his back upon you, kender.

  “What will you do to me?” Tas sobbed wretchedly. “Where will I go?” He lifted a tear-streaked face. “I don’t suppose you c-could send me back to Caramon? Or back to my own time?”

  Your time no longer exists. As for sending you to Caramon, that is quite impossible, as you surely must understand. No, you will remain here, with me, so I may insure that nothing goes wrong.

  “Here?” Tas gasped. “How long?”

  The woman began to fade before his eyes, shimmering and finally vanishing into the nothingness around him. Not long, I should imagine, kender. Not long at all. Or perhaps always.…

  “What do you—what does she mean?” Tas turned to face the gray-haired cleric, who had sprung up to fill the void left by Her Dark Majesty. “Not long or always?”

  “Though not dead, you are—even now—dying. Your lifeforce is ebbing from you, as it must for any of the living who mistakenly venture down here and who have not the power to fight the evil that devours them from within. When you are dead, the gods will determine your fate.”

  “I see,” said Tas, choking back a lump in his throat. He hung his head. “I deserve it, I suppose. Oh, Tanis, I’m sorry! I truly didn’t mean to do it.…”

  The cleric gripped his arm painfully. The surroundings changed, the ground shifted away beneath his feet. But Tasslehoff never noticed. His eyes filling with tears, he gave himself up to dark despair and hoped death would come quickly.

  CHAPTER

  8

  ere you are,” said the dark cleric.

  “Where?” Tas asked listlessly, more out of force of habit than because he cared.

  The cleric paused, then shrugged. “I suppose if there were a prison in the Abyss, you would be in it now.”

  Tas looked around. As usual, there was nothing there—simply a vast barren stretch of eerie emptiness. There were no walls, no cells, no barred windows, no doors, no locks, no jailer. And he knew, with deep certainty, that—this time—there was no escape.

  “Am I supposed to just stand here until I drop?” Tas asked in a small voice. “I mean, couldn’t I at least have a bed and a-a stool—oh!”

  As he spoke, a bed materialized before his eyes, as did a three-legged, wooden stool. But even these familiar objects appeared so horrifying, sitting in the middle of nothing, that Tas could not bear to look at them long.

  “Th-thank you,” he stammered, walking over to sit down upon the stool with a sigh. “What about food and water?”

  He waited a moment, to see if these, too, would appear. But they didn’t. The cleric shook his head, his gray hair forming a swirling cloud around him.

  “No, the needs of your mortal body will be cared for while you are here. You will feel no hunger or thirst. I have even healed your wounds.”

  Tas suddenly noticed that his ribs had stopped hurting and the pain in his head was gone. The iron collar had vanished from around his neck.

  “There is no need for your thanks,” the cleric continued, seeing Tas open his mouth. “We do this so that you will not interrupt us in our work. And, so, farewell—”

  The dark cleric raised his hands, obviously preparing to depart.

  “Wait!” Tas cried, leaping up from his stool and clutching at the dark, flowing robes. “Won’t I see you again? Don’t leave me alone!” But he might as well have tried to grab smoke. The flowing robes slipped through his fingers, and the dark cleric disappeared.

  “When you are dead, we will return your body to lands above and see that your soul speeds on its way … or stays here, as you may be judged. Until that time, we have no more need of contact with you.”

  “I’m alone!” Tas said, glancing around his bleak surroundings in despair. “Truly alone … alone until I die.… Which won’t be long,” he added sadly. Walking over, he sat down upon his stool. “I might as well die as fast as possible and get it over with. At least I’ll probably go someplace different—I hope.” He looked up into the empty vastness.

  “Fizban,” Tas said softly, “you probably can’t hear me from clear down here. And I don’t suppose there’s anything you could do for me anyway, but I did want to tell you, before I die, that I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble, disrupting Par-Salian’s spell and going back in time when I wasn’t supposed to go and all that.”

  Heaving a sigh, Tas pressed his small hands together, his lower lip quivering. “Maybe that doesn’t count for much … and I suppose that—if I must be honest—part of me went along with Caramon just because”—he swallowed the tears that were beginning to trickle down his nose—“just because it sounded like so much fun! But, truly, part of me went with him because he had no business going back into the past alone! He was fuddled because of the dwarf spirits, you see. And I promised Tika I’d look after him. Oh, Fizban! If there were just some way out of this mess, I’d try my best to straighten everything out. Honestly—”

  “Hullothere.”

  “What?” Tas nearly fell off his stool. Whirling around, half thinking he might see Fizban, he saw, instead, only a short figure—shorter even than himself—dressed in brown britches, a gray tunic, and a brown leather apron.

  “Isaidhullothere,” repeated the voice, rather irritably.

  “Oh, he-hello,” Tas stammered, staring at the figure. It certainly didn’t look like a dark cleric, at least Tas had never heard of any that wore brown leather aprons. But, he supposed, there could always be exceptions especially considering the fact that brown leather aprons are such useful things. Still, this person bore a strong resemblance to someone he knew, if only he could remember.…

  “Gnosh!” Tas exclaimed suddenly, snapping his fingers. “You’re a gnome! Uh, pardon me for asking such a personal question”—the kender flushed in embarrassment—“but are you—uh—dead?”

  “Areyou?” the gnome asked, eyeing the kender suspiciously.

  “No,” said Tas, rather indignantly.

  “WellI’mnoteither!” snapped the gnome.

  “Uh, could you slow down a bit?” Tas suggested. “I know your people talk rapidly, but it makes it hard for us to understand, sometimes—”

  “I said I’m not either!” the gnome shouted loudly.

  “Thank you,” Tas said politely. “And I’m not hard of hearing. You can talk in a normal tone of voice—er, talk slowly in a normal tone of voice,” the kender hurried to add, seeing the gnome draw in a breath.

  “What’s … your … name?” the gnome asked, speaking at a snail’s pace.

  “Tasslehoff … Burrfoot.” The kender extended a small hand, which the gnome took and shook heartily. “What’s … yours? I mean—what’s yours? Oh, no! I didn’t mean—”

  But it was too late. The gnome was off.

  “Gnimshmarigongalesefrahootsputhturandotsamanella—”

  “The short form!” Tas cried when the gnome stopped for breath.

  “Oh.” The gnome appeared downcast. “Gnimsh.”

  “Thank you. Nice meeting you—uh—Gnimsh,” Tas said, sighing in relief. He had completely forgotten that every gnome’s name provides the unwary listener with a complete account of the gnome’s family’s life history, beginning with his earliest known (or imagined) ancestor.

  “Nice meeting you, Burrfoot,” the gnome said, and they shook hands again.

  “Will you be seated?” Tas said, sitting down on the bed and gesturing politely toward the stool. But Gnimsh gave the stool a scathing glance and sat down in a chair that materialized right beneath him. Tas gasped at the sight. It was truly a remarkable chair—it had a footrest that went up and down and rockers on the bottom that let the chair rock back and forth and it even tilted completely backward, letting the person sitting in it lie down if so inclined.

  Unfortunately, as Gnimsh sat down, the chair tilted too far backward, flipping the gnome out on his head. Grumbling, he climbed back in it and pressed a lever. This time, the footrest flew up, striking him
in the nose. At the same time, the back came forward and, before long, Tas had to help rescue Gnimsh from the chair, which appeared to be eating him.

  “Drat,” said the gnome and, with a wave of his hand, he sent the chair back to wherever it had come from, and sat down, disconsolately, on Tasslehoff’s stool.

  Having visited gnomes and seen their inventions before, Tasslehoff mumbled what was proper. “Quite interesting … truly an advanced design in chairs.…”

  “No, it isn’t,” Gnimsh snapped, much to Tas’s amazement. “It’s a rotten design. Belonged to my wife’s first cousin. I should have known better than to think of it. But”—he sighed—“sometimes I get homesick.”

  “I know,” Tas said, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat. “If-if you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here, if you’re—uh—not dead?”

  “Will you tell me what you’re doing here?” Gnimsh countered.

  “Of course,” said Tas, then he had a sudden thought. Glancing around warily, he leaned forward. “No one minds, do they?” he asked in a whisper. “That we’re talking, I mean? Maybe we’re not supposed to—”

  “Oh, they don’t care,” Gnimsh said scornfully. “As long as we leave them alone, we’re free to go around anywhere. Of course,” he added, “anywhere looks about the same as here, so there’s not much point.”

  “I see,” Tas said with interest. “How do you travel?”

  “With your mind. Haven’t you figured that out yet? No, probably not.” The gnome snorted. “Kender were never noted for their brains.”

  “Gnomes and kender are related,” Tas pointed out in miffed tones.

  “So I’ve heard,” Gnimsh replied skeptically, obviously not believing any of it.

  Tasslehoff decided, in the interests of maintaining peace, to change the subject. “So, if I want to go somewhere, I just think of that place and I’m there?”

  “Within limits, of course,” Gnimsh said. “You can’t, for example, enter any of the holy precincts where the dark clerics go—”

  “Oh.” Tas sighed, that having been right up at the top of his list of tourist attractions. Then he cheered up again. “You made that chair come out of nothing and, come to think of it, I made this bed and this stool. If I think of something, will it just appear?”

  “Try it,” Gnimsh suggested.

  Tas thought of something.

  Gnimsh snorted as a hatrack appeared at the end of the bed. “Now that’s handy.”

  “I was just practicing,” Tas said in hurt tones.

  “You better watch it,” the gnome said, seeing Tas’s face light up. “Sometimes things appear, but not quite the way you expected.”

  “Yeah.” Tas suddenly remembered the tree and the dwarf. He shivered. “I guess you’re right. Well, at least we have each other. Someone to talk to. You can’t imagine how boring it was.” The kender settled back on the bed, first imagining—with caution—a pillow. “Well, go ahead. Tell me your story.”

  “You start.” Gnimsh glanced at Tas out of the corner of his eye.

  “No, you’re my guest.”

  “I insist.”

  “I insist.”

  “You. After all, I’ve been here longer.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.… Go on.”

  “But—” Tas suddenly saw this was getting nowhere, and though they apparently had all eternity, he didn’t plan on spending it arguing with a gnome. Besides, there was no real reason why he shouldn’t tell his story. He enjoyed telling stories, anyway. So, leaning back comfortably, he told his tale. Gnimsh listened with interest, though he did rather irritate Tas by constantly interrupting and telling him to “get on with it,” just at the most exciting parts.

  Finally, Tas came to his conclusion. “And so here I am. Now yours,” he said, glad to pause for breath.

  “Well,” Gnimsh said hesitantly, looking around darkly as though afraid someone might be listening, “it all began years and years ago with my family’s Life Quest. You do know”—he glared at Tas—“what a Life Quest is?”

  “Sure,” said Tas glibly. “My friend Gnosh had a Life Quest. Only his was dragon orbs. Each gnome has assigned to him a particular project that he must complete successfully or never get into the Afterlife.” Tas had a sudden thought. “That’s not why you’re here, is it?”

  “No.” The gnome shook his wispy-haired head. “My family’s Life Quest was developing an invention that could take us from one dimensional plane of existence to another. And”—Gnimsh heaved a sigh—“mine worked.”

  “It worked?” Tas said, sitting up in astonishment.

  “Perfectly,” Gnimsh answered with increasing despondency.

  Tasslehoff was stunned. He’d never before heard of such a thing—a gnomish invention that worked … and perfectly, too!

  Gnimsh glanced at him. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “I’m a failure. You don’t know the half of it. You see—all of my inventions work. Every one.”

  Gnimsh put his head in his hands.

  “How—how does that make you a failure?” Tas asked, confused.

  Gnimsh raised his head, staring at him. “Well, what good is inventing something if it works? Where’s the challenge? The need for creativity? For forward thinking? What would become of progress? You know,” he said with deepening gloom, “that if I hadn’t come here, they were getting ready to exile me. They said I was a distinct threat to society. I set scientific exploration back a hundred years.”

  Gnimsh’s head drooped. “That’s why I don’t mind being here. Like you, I deserve it. It’s where I’m likely to wind up anyway.”

  “Where is your device?” Tas asked in sudden excitement.

  “Oh, they took it away, of course,” Gnimsh answered, waving his hand.

  “Well!”—the kender thought—“can’t you imagine one? You imagined up that chair?”

  “And you saw what it did!” Gnimsh replied. “Likely I’d end up with my father’s invention. It took him to another plane of existence, all right. The Committee on Exploding Devices is studying it now, in fact, or at least they were when I got stuck here. What are you trying to do? Find a way out of the Abyss?”

  “I have to,” Tas said resolutely. “The Queen of Darkness will win the war, otherwise, and it will all be my fault. Plus, I’ve got some friends who are in terrible danger. Well, one of them isn’t exactly a friend, but he is an interesting person and, while he did try to kill me by making me break the magical device, I’m certain it was nothing personal. He had a good reason.…”

  Tas stopped.

  “That’s it!” he said, springing up off the bed. “That’s it!” he cried in such excitement that a whole forest of hatracks appeared around the bed, much to the gnome’s alarm.

  Gnimsh slid off his stool, eyeing Tas warily. “What’s it?” he demanded, bumping into a hatrack.

  “Look!” Tas said, fumbling with his pouches. He opened one, then another. “Here it is!” he said, holding a pouch open to show Gnimsh. But, just as the gnome was peering into it, Tas suddenly slammed it shut. “Wait!”

  “What?” Gnimsh asked, startled.

  “Are they watching?” Tas asked breathlessly. “Will they know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Just—will they know?”

  “No, I don’t suppose so,” Gnimsh answered hesitantly. “I can’t say for sure, since I don’t know what it is they’re not supposed to know. But I do know that they’re all pretty busy, right now, from what I can tell. Waking up evil dragons and that sort of thing. Takes a lot of work.”

  “Good,” Tas said grimly, sitting on the bed. “Now, look at this.” He opened his pouch and dumped out the contents. “What does that remind you of?”

  “The year my mother invented the device designed to wash dishes,” the gnome said. “The kitchen was knee-deep in broken crockery. We had to—”

  “No!” Tas snapped irritably. “Look, hold this piece next to this one and—”
/>   “My dimensional traveling device!” Gnimsh gasped. “You’re right! It did look something like this. Mine didn’t have all these gewgaw jewels, but.… No, look. You’ve got it all wrong. I think that goes here, not there. Yes. See? And then this chain hooks on here and wraps around like so. No, that’s not quite the way. It must go … Wait, I see. This has to fit in there first.” Sitting down on the bed, Gnimsh picked up one of the jewels and stuck it into place. “Now, I need another one of these red gizmos.” He began sorting through the jewels. “What did you do to this thing, anyway?” he muttered. “Put it into a meat grinder?”

  But the gnome, absorbed in his task, completely ignored Tas’s answer. The kender, meanwhile, took advantage of the opportunity to tell his story again. Perching on the stool, Tas talked blissfully and without interruption while, totally forgetting the kender’s existence, Gnimsh began to arrange the myriad jewels and little gold and silver things and chains, stacking them into neat piles.

  All the while Tas was talking, though, he was watching Gnimsh, hope filling his heart. Of course, he thought with a pang, he had prayed to Fizban, and there was every possibility that, if Gnimsh got this device working, it might whisk them onto a moon or turn them both into chickens or something. But, Tas decided, he’d just have to take that chance. After all, he’d promised he’d try to straighten things out, and though finding a failed gnome wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind, it was better than sitting around, waiting to die.

  Gnimsh, meanwhile, had imagined up a piece of slate and a bit of chalk and was sketching diagrams, muttering, “Slide jewel A into golden gizmo B—”

  CHAPTER

  9

  wretched place, my brother,” Raistlin remarked softly as he slowly and stiffly dismounted from his horse.

  “We’ve stayed in worse,” Caramon commented, helping Lady Crysania from her mount. “It’s warm and dry inside, which makes it one hundred times better than out here. Besides,” he added gruffly, glancing at his brother, who had collapsed against the side of his horse, coughing and shivering, “we none of us can ride farther without rest. I’ll see to the horses. You two go on in.”