Margaret Weis - Test of the Twins

Solace.

How strange, she marveled, looking around. It was Solace, all right. She had been here recently, with Tanis Half-Elven, looking for Caramon. But this Solace was different. Everything seemed tinged with red and just a tiny bit distorted. She kept wanting to rub her eyes to clear them.

“Raistlin!” she called.

There was no answer. The people passing by acted as if they neither heard her nor saw her.

“Raistlin!” she cried, starting to panic. What had happened to him? Where had he gone? Had the Dark Queen...

She heard a commotion, children shouting and yelling and, above the noise, a thin, high-pitched scream for help.

Turning, Crysania saw a crowd of children gathered around a form huddled on the ground. She saw fists flailing and feet kicking, she saw a stick raised and then brought down, hard. Again, that high-pitched scream. Crysania glanced at the people around her, but they seemed unaware of anything unusual occurring.

Gathering her white robes in her hand, Crysania ran toward the children. She saw, as she drew nearer, that the figure in the center of the circle was a child! A young boy! They were killing him, she realized in sudden horror! Reaching the crowd, she grabbed hold of one of the children to pull him away. At the touch of her hand, the child whirled to face her. Crysania fell back, alarmed. The child’s face was white, cadaverous, skull-like. Its skin stretched taut over the bones, its lips were tinged with violet. It bared its teeth at her, and the teeth were black and rotting. The child lashed out at her with its hand. Long nails ripped her skin, sending a stinging, paralyzing pain through her. Gasping, she let go, and the child—with a grin of perverted pleasure on its face—turned back to torment the boy on the ground.

Staring at the bleeding marks upon her arm, dizzy and weak from the pain, Crysania heard the boy cry out again.

“Paladine, help me,” she prayed. “Give me strength.”

Resolutely, she grabbed hold of one of the demon children and hurled it aside, and then she grabbed another. Managing to reach the boy upon the ground, she shielded his bleeding, unconscious body with her own, trying desperately all the while to drive the children away. Again and again, she felt the long nails tear her skin, the poison course through her body. But soon she noticed that, once they touched her, the children drew back, in pain themselves. Finally, sullen expressions on their nightmarish faces, they withdrew, leaving her—bleeding and sick—alone with their victim.

Gently, she turned the bruised body of the young boy over. Smoothing back the brown hair, she looked at his face. Her hands began to shake. There was no mistaking that delicate facial structure, the fragile bones, the jutting chin.

“Raistlin!” she whispered, holding his small hand in her own.

The boy opened his eyes...

The man, dressed in black robes, sat up.

Crysania stared at him as he looked grimly around.

“What is happening?” she asked, shivering, feeling the effects of the poison spreading through her body.

Raistlin nodded to himself. “This is how she torments me,” he said softly. “This is how she fights me, striking at me where she knows I am weakest.” The golden, hourglass eyes turned to Crysania, the thin lips smiled. “You fought for me. You defeated her.” He drew her near, enfolding her in his black robes, holding her close. “There, rest a while. The pain will pass, and then we will travel on.”

Still shivering, Crysania laid her head on the archmage’s breast, hearing his breath wheeze and rattle in his lungs, smelling that sweet, faint fragrance of rose petals and death...

“And so this is what comes of his courageous words and promises,” said Kitiara in a low voice.

“Did you really expect otherwise?” asked Lord Soth. The words, accompanied with a shrug of the ancient armor, sounded nonchalant, almost rhetorical. But there was an edge to them that made Kitiara glance sharply at the death knight.

Seeing him staring at her, his orange eyes burning with a strange intensity, Kitiara flushed. Realization that she was revealing more emotion than she intended made her angry, her flush deepened. She turned from Soth abruptly.

Walking across the room, which was furnished with an odd mixture of armor, weaponry, perfumed silken sheets, and thick fur rugs, Kitiara clasped the folds of her filmy nightdress together across her breasts with a shaking hand. It was a gesture that accomplished little in the way of modesty, and Kitiara knew it, even as she wondered why she made it. Certainly she had never been concerned with modesty before, especially around a creature who had fallen into a heap of ash three hundred years ago. But she suddenly felt uncomfortable under the gaze of those blazing eyes, staring at her from a nonexistent face. She felt naked and exposed.

“No, of course not,” Kitiara replied coldly.

“He is, after all, a dark elf.” Soth went on in the same even, almost bored tones. “And he makes no secret of the fact that he fears your brother more than death itself. So is it any wonder that he chooses now to fight on Raistlin’s side rather than the side of a bunch of feeble old wizards who are quaking in their boots?”

“But he stood to gain so much!” Kitiara argued, trying her best to match her tone to Soth’s.

Shivering, she picked up a fur nightrobe that lay across the end of her bed and flung it around her shoulders. “They promised him the leadership of the Black Robes. He was certain to take Par-Salian’s s place after that as Head of the Conclave—undisputed master of magic on Krynn.”

And you would have known other rewards, as well, Dark Elf, Kitiara added silently, pouring herself a glass of red wine. Once that insane brother of mine is defeated, no one will be able to stop you. What of our plans? You ruling with the staff, I with the sword. We could have brought the Knights to their knees! Driven the elves from their homeland—your homeland! You would have gone back in triumph, my darling, and I would have been at your side!

The wine glass slipped from her hand. She tried to catch it—Her grasp was too hasty, her grip too strong. The fragile glass shattered in her hand, cutting into her flesh. Blood mingled with the wine that dripped onto the carpet.

Battle scars traced over Kitiara’s body like the hands of her lovers. She had borne her wounds without flinching, most without a murmur. But now her eyes flooded with tears. The pain seemed unbearable.

A wash bowl stood near. Kitiara plunged her hand into the cold water, biting her lip to keep from crying out. The water turned red instantly.

“Fetch one of the clerics!” she snarled at Lord Soth, who had remained standing, staring at her with his flickering eyes.

Walking to the door, the death knight called a servant who left immediately. Cursing beneath her breath, blinking back her tears, Kitiara grabbed a towel and wound it around her hand. By the time the cleric arrived, stumbling over his black robes in his haste, the towel was soaked through with blood, and Kitiara’s face was ashen beneath her tanned skin.

The medallion of the Five-Headed Dragon brushed against Kit’s hand as the cleric bent over it, muttering prayers to the Queen of Darkness. Soon the wounded flesh closed, the bleeding stopped.

“The cuts were not deep. There should be no lasting harm,” the cleric said soothingly.

“A good thing for you!” Kitiara snapped, still fighting the unreasonable faintness that assailed her. “That is my sword hand!”

“You will wield a blade with your accustomed ease and skill, I assure your lordship,” the cleric replied. “Will there be—”

“No! Get out!”

“My lord.” The cleric bowed—“Sir Knight”—and left the room.