Margaret Weis - Test of the Twins

Wherever here was. And, wherever it was, it certainly didn’t seem to be where it was supposed to be. He and Caramon were on a mountain trail, near a large boulder, standing ankle-deep in slick ash-gray mud that completely covered the face of the land below them for as far as Tas could see. Here and there, jagged ends of broken rock jutted from the soft flesh of the ash covering. There were no signs of life. Nothing could be alive in that desolation. No trees remained standing; only fire-blackened stumps poked through the thick mud. As far as the eye could see, clear to the horizon, in every direction, there was nothing but complete and total devastation.

The sky itself offered no relief. Above them, it was gray and empty. To the west, however, it was a strange violet color, boiling with weird, luminous clouds laced with lightning of brilliant blue. Other than the distant rumble of thunder, there was no sound... no movement... nothing. Caramon drew a deep breath and rubbed his hand across his face. The heat was intense and, already, even though they had been standing in this place only a few minutes, his sweaty skin was coated with a fine film of gray ash.

“Where are we?” he asked in even, measured tones. “I-I’m sure I haven’t any idea, Caramon,” Tas said. Then, after a pause, “Have you?”

“I did everything the way you told me to,” Caramon replied, his voice ominously calm. “You said Gnimsh said that all we had to do was think of where we wanted to go and there we’d be. I know I was thinking of Solace—”

“I was too!” Tas cried. Then, seeing Caramon glare at him, the kender faltered. “At least I was thinking of it most of the time...”

“Most of the time?” Caramon asked in a dreadfully calm voice.

“Well”—Tas gulped—“I—I did th-think once, just for an instant, mind you, about how—er—how much fun and interesting and, well, unique, it would be to—uh—visit a—uuh... um...

“Um what?” Caramon demanded. “A... mmmmmm.”

“A what?”

“Mmmmm,” Tas mumbled. Caramon sucked in his breath. “A moon!” Tas said quickly.

“Moon!” repeated Caramon incredulously. “Which moon?” he asked after a moment, glancing around. “Oh”—Tas shrugged—“any of the three. I suppose one’s as good as another. Quite similar, I should imagine. Except, of course, that Solinari would have all glittering silver rocks and Lunitari all bright red rocks, and I guess the other one would be all black, though I can’t say for sure, never having seen—”

Caramon growled at this point, and Tas decided it might be best to hold his tongue. He did, too, for about three minutes during which time Caramon continued to look around at their surroundings with a solemn face. But it would have taken more holding than the kender had inside him (or a sharp knife) to keep his tongue from talking longer than that.

“Caramon,” he blurted out, “do—do you think we actually did it? Went to a—uh—moon, that is? I mean, this certainly doesn’t look like anyplace I’ve ever been before. Not that these rocks are silver or red or even black. They’re more of a rock color, but—”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Caramon said gloomily. “After all, you did take us to a seaport city that was sitting squarely in the middle of a desert—”

“That wasn’t my fault either!” Tas said indignantly. “Why even Tanis said—”

“Still”—Caramon’s face creased in puzzlement “this place certainly looks strange, but it seems familiar somehow.”

“You’re right,” said Tas after a moment, staring around again at the bleak, ash-choked landscape. “It does remind me of somewhere, now that you mention it. Only”—the kender shivered—“I don’t recall ever having been anyplace quite this awful... except the Abyss,” he added, but he said it under his breath.

The boiling clouds surged nearer and nearer as the two spoke, casting a further pall over the barren land. A hot wind sprang up, and a fine rain began to fall, mingling with the ash drifting through the air. Tas was just about to comment on the slimy quality of the rain when suddenly, without warning, the world blew up.

At least that was Tas’s first impression. Brilliant, blinding light, a sizzling sound, a crack, a boom that shook the ground, and Tasslehoff found himself sitting in the gray mud, staring stupidly at a gigantic hole that had been blasted in the rock not a hundred feet away from him.

“Name of the gods!” Caramon gasped. Reaching down, he dragged Tas to his feet. “Are you all right?”

“I—I think so,” said Tas, somewhat shaken. As he watched, lightning streaked again from the cloud to ground, sending rock and ash hurtling through the air. “My! That certainly was an interesting experience. Though nothing I’d care to repeat right away,” he added hastily, fearful that the sky, which was growing darker and darker by the minute, might decide to treat him to that interesting experience all over again.

“Wherever we are, we better get off this high ground,” Caramon muttered. “At least there’s a trail. It must lead somewhere.”

Glancing down the mud-choked trail into the equally mud-choked valley below, Tas had the fleeting thought that Somewhere was likely to be every bit as gray and yucky as Here, but, after a glimpse of Caramon’s grim face, the kender quickly decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

As they slogged down the trail through the thick mud, the hot wind blew harder, driving specks of blackened wood and cinders and ash into their flesh. Lightning danced among the trees, making them burst into balls of bright green or blue flame. The ground shook with the concussive roar of the thunder. And still, the storm clouds massed on the horizon. Caramon hurried their pace.

As they labored down the hillside they entered what must once have been, Tas imagined, a beautiful valley. At one time, he guessed, the trees here must have been ablaze with autumn oranges and golds, or misty green in the spring. Here and there, he saw spirals of smoke curling up, only to be whipped away immediately by the storm wind. Undoubtedly from more lightning strikes, he thought. But, in an odd sort of way, that reminded him of something, too. Like Caramon, he was becoming increasingly convinced that he knew this place.

Wading through the mud, trying to ignore what the icky stuff was doing to his green shoes and bright blue leggings, Tas decided to try an old kender trick To Use When Lost. Closing his eyes and blotting everything from his mind, he ordered his brain to provide him with a picture of the landscape before him. The rather interesting kender logic behind this being that since it was likely that some kender in Tasslehoff’s family had undoubtedly been to this place before, the memory was somehow passed on to his or her descendants. While this was never scientifically verified (the gnomes are working on it, having referred it to committee), it certainly is true that—to this day—no kender has ever been reported lost on Krynn.

At any rate, Tas, standing shin-deep in mud, closed his eyes and tried to conjure up a picture of his surroundings. One came to him, so vivid in its clarity that he was rather startled—certainly his ancestors’ mental maps had never been so perfect. There were trees—giant trees—there were mountains on the horizon, there was a lake...

Opening his eyes, Tas gasped. There was a lake! He hadn’t noticed it before, probably because it was the same gray, sludge color as the ash-covered ground. Was there water there, still? Or was it filled with mud?

I wonder, Tas mused, if Uncle Trapspringer ever visited a moon. If so, that would account for the fact that I recognize this place. But surely he would have told someone... Perhaps he would have if the goblins hadn’t eaten him before he had the chance. Speaking of food, that reminds me...