Margaret Weis - Test of the Twins

“Your spies say there is unusual activity in Sanction. Surely, that is evidence enough! Believe me, Lord Gunthar, Kitiara will come to her brother’s aid. She knows he will set her up as ruler of the world if he succeeds. And she is gambler enough to risk everything for that chance! Please, Lord Gunthar, if you won’t listen to me, at least come to Palanthas! Talk to Elistan!”

Lord Gunthar studied the man before him carefully. The leader of the Knights had risen to his position because he was, basically, a just and honest man. He was also a keen judge of character. He had liked and admired the half-elf since meeting him after the end of the war. But he had never been able to get close to him. There was something about Tanis, a reserved, withdrawn air that permitted few to cross the invisible barriers he set up.

Looking at him now, Gunthar felt suddenly closer than he had ever come before. He saw wisdom in the slightly slanted eyes, wisdom that had not come easily, wisdom that came through inner pain and suffering. He saw fear, the fear of one whose courage is so much a part of him that he readily admits he is afraid. He saw in him a leader of men. Not one who merely waves a sword and leads a charge in battle, but a leader who leads quietly, by drawing the best out of people, by helping them achieve things they never knew were in them.

And, at last, Gunthar understood something he had never been able to fathom. He knew now why Sturm Brightblade, whose lineage went back unsullied through generations, had chosen to follow this bastard half-elf, who—if rumors were true—was the product of a brutal rape. He knew now why Laurana, an elven princess and one of the strongest, most beautiful women he had ever known, had risked everything—even her life—for love of this man.

“Very well, Tanis.” Lord Gunthar’s stern face relaxed, the cool, polite tones of his voice grew warmer. “I will return to Palanthas with you. I will mobilize the Knights and set up our defenses at the High Clerist’s Tower. As I said, our spies did inform us that there is unusual activity going on in Sanction. It wont hurt the Knights to turn out. Been a long time since we’ve had field drill.”

Decision made, Lord Gunthar immediately proceeded to turn the household upside down, shouting for Wills, his retainer, shouting for his armor to be brought, his sword sharpened, his griffon readied. Soon servants were flying here and there, his lady-wife came in, looking resigned, and insisted that he pack his heavy, fur-lined cloak even though it was near Spring Dawning celebration.

Forgotten in the confusion, Tanis walked back to the fireplace, picked up his mug of ale, and sat down to enjoy it. But, after all, he did not taste it. Staring into the flames, he saw, once again, a charming, crooked smile, dark curly hair... .

How long she and Raistlin journeyed through the red-tinged, distorted land of the Abyss, Crysania had no idea. Time ceased to have any meaning or relevance. Sometimes it seemed they had been here only a few seconds, sometimes she knew she had been walking the strange, shifting terrain for weary years. She had healed herself of the poison, but she felt weak, drained. The scratches on her arms would not close. She wrapped fresh bandages about them each day. By night, they were soaked through with blood.

She was hungry, but it was not a hunger that required food to sustain life so much as a hunger to taste a strawberry, or a mouthful of warm, fresh-baked bread, or a sprig of mint. She did not feel thirst either, and yet she dreamed of clear running water and bubbling wine and the sharp, pungent aroma of tarbean tea. In this land, all the water was tinged reddish brown and smelled of blood.

Yet, they made progress. At least so Raistlin said. He seemed to gain in strength as Crysania grew weaker. Now it was he who helped her walk sometimes. It was he who pushed them onward without rest, passing through town after town, always nearing, he said, Godshome. The mirror image villages of this land below blurred together in Crysania’s mind—Que-shu, Xak Tsaroth. They crossed the Abyss’s New Sea—a dreadful journey. Looking into the water, Crysania saw the horror-filled faces of all who had died in the Cataclysm staring up at her.

They landed at a place Raistlin said was Sanction. Crysania felt her weakest here, for Raistlin told her it was the center of worship for the Dark Queen’s followers. Her Temples were built far below the mountains known as the Lords of Doom. Here, Raistlin said, during the War, they had performed the evil rites that turned the unhatched children of the good dragons into the foul and twisted draconians.

Nothing further happened to them for a long while—or perhaps it was only a second. No one looked twice at Raistlin in his black robes and no one looked at Crysania at all. She might well have been invisible. They passed through Sanction easily, Raistlin growing in strength and confidence. He told Crysania they were very close now. Godshome was located somewhere to the north in Khalkist Mountains.

How he could tell any direction at all in this weird and awful land was beyond Crysania—there was nothing to guide them, no sun, no moons, no stars. It was never really night and never truly day, just some sort of dreary, reddish in between. She was thinking of this, trudging wearily beside Raistlin, not watching where they were going since it all looked the same anyway, when, suddenly, the archmage came to a halt. Hearing his sharp intake of breath, feeling him stiffen, Crysania looked up in swift alarm.

A middle-aged man dressed in the white robes of a teacher was walking down the road toward them...

“Repeat the words after me, remembering to give them the proper inflection.” Slowly he said the words. Slowly the class repeated them. All except one.

“Raistlin!”

The class fell silent.

“Master?” Raistlin did not bother to conceal the sneer in his voice as he said the word.

“I didn’t see your lips moving.”

“Perhaps that is because they were not moving, Master,” Raistlin replied.

If someone else in the class of young magic-users had made such a remark, the pupils would have snickered. But they knew Raistlin felt the same scorn for them that he felt for the Master, and so they glowered at him and shifted uncomfortably.

“You know the spell, do you, apprentice?”

“Certainly I know the spell,” Raistlin snapped. “I knew it when I was six! When did you learn it? Last night?”

The Master glared, his face purpled with rage. “You have gone too far this time, apprentice! You have insulted me once too often!”

The classroom faded before Raistlin’s eyes, melting away. Only the Master remained and, as Raistlin watched, his old teacher’s white robes turned to black! His stupid, paunchy face twisted into a malevolent, crafty face of evil. A bloodstone pendant appeared, hanging around his neck.

“Fistandantilus!” Raistlin gasped.

“Again we meet, apprentice. But now, where is your magic?” The wizard laughed. Reaching up a withered hand, he began fingering the bloodstone pendant.

Panic swept over Raistlin. Where was his magic? Gone! His hands shook. The words of spells tumbled into his mind; only to slip away before he could grasp hold of them. A ball of flame appeared in Fistandantilus’s hands. Raistlin choked on his fear.

The Staff! he thought suddenly. The Staff of Magius. Surely its magic will not be affected! Raising the staff, holding it before him, he called upon it to protect him. But the staff began to twist and writhe in Raistlin’s hand. “No!” he cried in terror and anger. “Obey my command! Obey!” The staff coiled itself around his arm and it was no longer a staff at all, but a huge snake. Glistening fangs sank into his flesh.