Margaret Weis - Test of the Twins

“I turned my back upon Istar.

“Arriving home, I battered down the doors of my castle. My wife, alarmed, came to meet me, holding her infant son in her arms. There was a look of despair upon her face—I took it for an admission of guilt. I cursed her, I cursed her child. And, at that moment, the fiery mountain struck Ansalon.

“The stars fell from the sky. The ground shook and split asunder. A chandelier, lit with a hundred candles, fell from the ceiling. In an instant my wife was engulfed with flame. She knew she was dying, but she held out her babe to me to rescue from the fire that was consuming her. I hesitated, then, jealous rage still filling my heart, I turned away.

“With her dying breath, she called down the wrath of the gods upon me. ‘You will die this night in fire,’ she cried, ‘even as your son and I die. But you will live eternally in darkness. You will live one life for every life that your folly has brought to an end this night!’ She perished.

“The flames spread. My castle was soon ablaze. Nothing we tried would put out that strange fire. It burned even rock. My men tried to flee. But, as I watched, they, too, burst into flame. There was no one, no one left alive except myself upon that mountain. I stood in the great hall, alone, surrounded on all sides by fire that did not yet touch me. But, as I stood there, I saw it closing in upon me, coming closer... closer... .

“I died slowly, in unbearable agony. When death finally came, it brought no relief. For I closed my eyes only to open them again, looking into a world of emptiness and bleak despair and eternal torment. Night after night, for endless years, I have sat upon this throne and listened to those elven women sing my story.

“But that ended, it ended with you, Kitiara... .

“When the Dark Queen called upon me to aid her in the war, I told her I would serve the first Dragon Highlord who had courage enough to spend the night in Dargaard Keep. There was only one—you, my beauty. You, Kitiara. I admired you for that, I admired you for your courage, your skill, your ruthless determination. In you, I see myself. I see what I might have become.

“I helped you murder the other Highlords when we fled Neraka in the turmoil following the Queen’s defeat, I helped you reach Sanction, and there I helped you establish your power once again upon this continent. I helped you when you tried to thwart your brother, Raistlin’s, plans for challenging the Queen of Darkness. No, I wasn’t surprised he outwitted you. Of all the living I have ever met, he is the only one I fear.

“I have even been amused by your love affairs, my Kitiara. We dead cannot feel lust. That is a passion of the blood and no blood flows in these icy limbs. I watched you twist that weakling, Tanis Half-Elven, inside out, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as you did.

“But now, Kitiara, what have you become? The mistress has become the slave. And for what—an elf! Oh, I have seen your eyes burn when you speak his name. I’ve seen your hands tremble when you hold his letters. You think of him when you should be planning war. Even your generals can no longer claim your attention.

“No, we dead cannot feel lust. But we can feel hatred, we can feel envy, we can feel jealousy and possession.

“I could kill Dalamar—the dark elf apprentice is good, but he is no match for me. His master? Raistlin? Ah, now that would be a different story.

“My Queen in your dark Abyss—beware Raistlin! In him, you face your greatest challenge, and you must—in the end—face it alone. I cannot help you on that plane, Dark Majesty, but perhaps I can aid you on this one.

“Yes, Dalamar, I could kill you. But I have known what it is to die, and death is a shabby, paltry thing. Its pain is agony, but soon over. What greater pain to linger on and on in the world of the living, smelling their warm blood, seeing their soft flesh, and knowing that it can never, never be yours again. But you will come to know, all too well, dark elf...

“As for you, Kitiara, know this—I would endure this pain, I would live out another century of tortured existence rather than see you again in the arms of a living man!”

The death knight brooded and plotted, his mind twisting and turning like the thorny branches of the black roses that overran his castle. The skeletal warriors paced the ruined battlements, each hovering near the place where he had met his death. The elven women wrung their fleshless hands and moaned in bitter sorrow at their fate.

Soth heard nothing, was aware of nothing. He sat upon his blackened throne, staring unseeing at a dark, charred splotch upon the stone floor—a splotch that he had sought for years with all the power of his magic to obliterate—and still it remained, a splotch in the shape of a woman... And then, at last, the unseen lips smiled, and the flame of the orange eyes burned bright in their endless night.

“You, Kitiara—you will be mine—forever...

The carriage rumbled to a stop. The horses snorted and shook themselves, jingling the harness, thudding their hooves against the smooth paving stones, as if eager to get this journey over with and return to their comfortable stables.

A head poked in the carriage window.

“Good morning, sir. Welcome to Palanthas. Please state your name and business.” This delivered in a bright, official voice by a bright, official young man who must have just come on duty. Peering into the carriage, the guard blinked his eyes, trying to adjust them to the cool shadows of the coach’s interior. The late spring sun shone as brightly as the young mans face, probably because it, too, had just recently come on duty.

“My name is Tanis Half-Elven,” said the man inside the carriage, “and I am here by invitation to see Revered Son Elistan. I’ve got a letter here. If you’ll wait half a moment, I’ll—”

“Lord Tanis!” The face outlined by the carriage window turned as crimson as the ridiculously frogged and epauletted uniform he wore. “I beg your pardon, sir. I—I didn’t recognize... that is, I couldn’t see or I’m sure I would have recognized—”

“Damn it, man,” Tanis responded irritably, “don’t apologize for doing your job. Here’s the letter—”

“I won’t, sir. That is, I will, sir. Apologize, that is. Dreadfully sorry, sir. The letter? That really won’t be necessary, sir.”

Stammering, the guard saluted, cracked his head smartly on the top of the carriage window, caught the lacy sleeve of his cuff on the door, saluted again, and finally staggered back to his post looking as if he had just emerged from a fight with hobgoblins.

Grinning to himself, but a rueful grin at that, Tanis leaned back as the carriage continued on its way through the gates of the Old City Wall. The guard was his idea. It had taken a great deal of argument and persuasion on Tanis’s part to convince Lord Amothus of Palanthas that the city gates should actually not only be shut but guarded as well.

“But people might not feel welcome. They might be offended,” Amothus had protested faintly. “And, after all, the war is over.”

Tanis sighed again. When would they learn? Never, he supposed gloomily, staring out the window into the city that, more than any other on the continent of Ansalon, epitomized the complacency into which the world had fallen since the end of the War of the Lance two years ago. Two years ago this spring, in fact.

That brought still another sigh from Tanis. Damn! He had forgotten! War End’s Day! When was that? Two weeks? Three? He would have to put on that silly costume—the ceremonial armor of a Knight of Solamnia, the elven regalia, the dwarven trappings. There’d be dinners of rich food that kept him awake half the night, speeches that put him to sleep after dinner, a nd Laurana... . Tanis gasped. Laurana! She’d remembered! Of course! How could he have been so thick-headed? They’d just returned home to Solanthus a few weeks ago after attending Solostaran’s funeral in Qualinesti—and after he’d made an unsuccessful trip back to Solace in search of Lady Crysania when a letter arrived for Laurana in flowing elven script: