Margaret Weis - Time of the Twins

The crowd cheered and roared. Even though they knew it was fake, they loved convincing themselves it wasn’t. The roaring grew louder as the Red Minotaur entered, his bestial face disdainful as always. Kiiri and Pheragas glanced at him, then at the trident he held, then at each other. Kiiri’s hand closed tightly around her dagger.

Caramon felt the ground shake again. Then Arack called his name. It was time for the Game to begin.

Tasslehoff felt the first tremors and for a moment thought it was just his imagination, a reaction to that terrible anger rolling around them. Then he saw the curtains swaying back and forth, and he realized that this was it...

Activate the device! came a voice into Tasslehoff’s brain. His hands trembling, looking down at the pendant, Tas repeated the instructions.

“Thy time is thy own, let’s see, I turn the face toward me. There. Though across it you travel. I shift this plate from right to left. Its expanses you see—back plate drops to form two disks connected by rods... it works!” Highly excited, Tas continued. “Whirling through forever, twist top facing me counterclockwise from bottom. Obstruct not its How. Make sure the pendant chain is clear. There, that’s right. Now, Grasp firmly the end and the beginning. Hold the disks at both ends. Turn them back upon themselves, like so, and All that is loose shall be secure. The chain will wind itself into the body! Isn’t this wonderful! It’s doing it! Now, Destiny be over your own head. Hold it over my head and—Wait! Something’s not right! I don’t think this is supposed to be happening...”

A tiny jeweled piece fell off the device, hitting Tas on the nose. Then another, and another, until the distraught kender was standing in a perfect rain of small, jeweled pieces.

“What?” Tas stared wildly at the device he held up over his head. Frantically he twisted the ends again. This time the rain of jeweled pieces became a positive downpour, clattering on the floor with bright, chime-like tones.

Tasslehoff wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think it was supposed to do this. Still, one never knew, especially about wizard’s toys. He watched it, holding his breath, waiting for the light...

The ground suddenly leaped beneath his feet, hurling him through the curtains and sending him sprawling on the floor at the feet of the Kingpriest. But the man never noticed the ashen-faced kender. The Kingpriest was staring about him in magnificent unconcern, watching with detached curiosity the curtains that rippled like waves, the tiny cracks that suddenly branched through the marble altar. Smiling to himself, as if assured that this was the acquiescence of the gods, the Kingpriest turned from the crumbling altar and made his way back down the central aisle, past the shuddering benches, and out into the main part of the Temple.

“No!” Tas moaned, rattling the device. At that moment, the tubes connecting either end of the sceptre separated in his hands. The chain slipped between his fingers. Slowly, trembling nearly as much as the floor on which he lay, Tasslehoff struggled to his feet. In his hand, he held the broken pieces of the magical device.

“What have I done?” Tas wailed. “I followed Raistlin’s instructions, I’m sure I did! I—”

And suddenly the kender knew. Tears caused the glimmering, shattered pieces to blur in his gaze. “He was so nice to me,” Tas murmured. “He made me repeat the instructions over and over—to make certain you have them right, he said.” Tas squeezed shut his eyes, willing that when he opened them, this would all be a bad dream.

But when he did, it wasn’t.

“I had them right. He meant for me to break it!” Tas whimpered, shivering. “Why? To strand us all back here? To leave us all to die’? No! He wants Crysania, they said so, the mages in the Tower. That’s it!” Tas whirled around. “Crysania!”

But the cleric neither heard nor saw him. Staring straight unhead, unmoved, even though the ground shook beneath her knees as she knelt, Crysania’s gray eyes glowed with an eerie, inner light. Her hands, still folded as if in prayer, clenched each other so tightly that the fingers had turned purplish red, the knuckles white.

Her lips moved. Was she praying?

Scrambling back behind the curtains, Tas quickly picked up every tiny jeweled piece of the device, gathered up the chain that had nearly slipped down a crack in the floor, then stuck everything into one pouch, closing it securely. Giving the floor a final look, he crept out into the Sacred Chamber.

“Crysania,” he whispered. He hated to disturb her prayers, but this was too urgent to give up.

“Crysania?” he said, coming over to stand in front of her, since it was obvious she wasn’t even aware of his existence.

Watching her lips, he read their unspoken utterings.

“I know,” she was saying, “I know his mistake! Perhaps for me, the gods will grant what they denied him!”

Drawing a deep breath, she lowered her head. “Paladine, thank you! Thank you!” Tas heard her intone fervently. Then, swiftly, she rose to her feet. Glancing around in some astonishment at the objects in the room that were moving in a deadly dance, her gaze flicked, unseeing, right over the kender.

“Crysania!” Tas babbled, this time clutching at her white robes. “Crysania, I broke it! Our only way back! I broke a dragon orb once. But that was on purpose! I never meant to break this. Poor Caramon! You’ve got to help me! Come with me, talk to Raistlin, make him fix it!”

The cleric stared down at Tasslehoff blankly, as if he were a stranger accosting her on the street. “Raistlin!” she murmured, gently but firmly detaching the kender’s hands from her robes. “Of course! He tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. And now I know, now I know the truth!”

Thrusting Tas away from her, Crysania gathered up her flowing white robes, darted out from among the benches, and ran down the center aisle without a backward glance as the Temple shook on its very foundations.

It wasn’t until Caramon started to mount the stairs leading out into the arena, that Raag finally removed the bindings from the gladiator’s wrists. Flexing his fingers, grimacing, Caramon followed Kiiri and Pheragas and the Red Minotaur out into the center of the arena. The audience cheered. Caramon, taking his place between Kiiri and Pheragas, looked up at the sky nervously. It was past High Watch, the sun was beginning its slow descent.

Istar would never live to see the sunset.

Thinking of this, and thinking that he, too, would never again see the sun’s red rays stream over a battlement, or melt into the sea, or light the tops of the vallenwoods, Caramon felt tears sting his eyes. He wept not so much for himself, but for those two who stood beside him, who must die this day, and for all those innocents who would perish without understanding why.

He wept, too, for the brother he had loved, but his tears for Raistlin were for someone who had died long ago.

“Kiiri, Pheragas,” Caramon said in a low voice when the Minotaur strode forward to take his bow alone, “I don’t know what the mage told you, but I never betrayed you.”

Kiiri refused to even look at him. He saw her lip curl. Pheragas, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, saw the stain of tears upon Caramon’s face and hesitated, frowning, before he, too, turned away.

“It doesn’t matter, really,” Caramon continued, “whether you believe me or not. You can kill each other for the key if you want, because I’m finding my freedom my own way.”

Now Kiiri looked at him, her eyes wide in disbelief. The crowd was on its feet, yelling for the Minotaur, who was walking around the arena, waving his trident above his head.

“You’re mad!” she whispered as loudly as she dared. Her gaze went meaningfully to Raag. As always, the ogre’s huge, yellowish body blocked the only exit.