Margaret Weis - Test of the Twins

Her dark hair fell over the smooth bare shoulders as she wept. Her wounds had opened, blood staining her robes red. Raistlin thought he heard her cry out to Paladine, but, if she did, the words could not be heard above the howling of the mob. Her faith was weakening even as she herself weakened.

Tanis advanced, a flaming torch in his hand. He turned to look at Raistlin.

“Witness her fate and see your own, witch!” the half-elf shouted.

“No!” Raistlin struggled, but Caramon held him fast.

Leaning down, Tanis thrust the blazing torch into the oil soaked, drying tinder. It caught. The fire spread quickly, soon engulfing Crysania’s white robes. Raistlin heard her anguished scream above the roar of the flame. She managed to raise her head, seeking for one final look at Raistlin. Seeing the pain and terror in her eyes, yet, seeing, too, love for him, Raistlin’s s heart burned with a fire hotter than any man could create.

“They want magic! I’ll give them magic!” And, before he thought, he shoved the startled Caramon away and, breaking free, raised his arms to the heavens. And, at that moment, the words of magic entered his soul, never to leave again.

Lightning streaked from his fingertips, striking the clouds in the red-tinged sky. The clouds answered with lightning, streaking down, striking the ground before the mage’s feet. Raistlin turned in fury upon the crowd—but the people had vanished, disappeared as though they had never existed.

“Ah, my Queen!” Laughter bubbled on his lips. Joy shot through his soul as the ecstasy of his magic burned in his blood. And, at last, he understood. He perceived his great folly and he saw his great chance.

He had been deceived—by himself! Tas had given him the clue at Zhaman, but he had not bothered to think it through. I thought of something in my mind, the kender said, and there it was! When I wanted to go somewhere, all 1 had to do was think about it, and either it came to me or I went to it, I’m not sure. It was all the cities I have ever been in and yet none. So the kender had told him.

I assumed the Abyss was a reflection of the world, Raistlin realized. And thus I journeyed through it. It isn’t, however. It is nothing more than a reflection of my mind! All I have been doing is traveling through my own mind!

The Queen is in Godshome because that is where I perceived her to be. And Godshome is as far away or as near as I choose! My magic did not work because I doubted it, not because she prevented it from working. I have come close to defeating myself! Ah, but now I know, my Queen! Now I know and now I can triumph! For Godshome is just a step away and it is only another step to the Portal...

“Raistlin!”

The voice was low, agonized, weary, spent. Raistlin turned his head. The crowd had vanished because it had never existed. It had been his creation. The village, the land, the continent, everything he had imagined was gone. He stood upon flat, undulating nothingness. Sky and ground were impossible to tell apart, both were the same eerie, burning pink. A faint horizon line was like a knife slit across the land.

But one object had not vanished—the wooden stake. Surrounded by charred wood, it stood outlined against the pink sky, thrusting up from the nothingness below. A figure lay below it. The figure might once have worn white robes, but these were now burnt black. The smell of burned flesh was strong.

Raistlin drew closer. Kneeling down upon the still-warm ashes, he turned the figure over.

“Crysania,” he murmured.

“Raistlin?” Her face was horribly burned, sightless eyes stared into the emptiness around her, she reached out a hand that was little more than a blackened claw. “Raistlin?” She moaned in agony. His hand closed over hers. “I can’t see!” she whimpered. “All is darkness! Is that you?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Raistlin, I’ve failed—”

“No, Crysania, you have not,” he said, his voice cool and even. “I am unharmed. My magic is strong now, stronger than it has ever been before in any of the times I have lived. I will go forward, now, and defeat the Dark Queen.”

The cracked and blistered lips parted in a smile. The hand holding Raistlin’s tightened its feeble grasp. “Then my prayers have been granted.” She choked, a spasm of pain twisted her body. When she could draw breath, she whispered something. Raistlin bent close to hear. “I am dying, Raistlin. I am weakened past endurance. Soon, Paladine will take me to him. Stay with me, Raistlin. Stay with me while I die... .”

Raistlin gazed down at the remains of the wretched woman before him. Holding her hand, he had a sudden vision of her as he had seen her in the forest near Caergoth the one time he had come close to losing control and making her his own—her white skin, her silken hair, her shining eyes. He remembered the love in those eyes, he remembered holding her close in his arms, he remembered kissing the smooth skin...

One by one, Raistlin burned those memories in his mind, setting fire to them with his magic, watching them turn to ash and blow away in smoke.

Reaching out his other hand, he freed himself from her clinging grasp.

“Raistlin!” she cried, her hand clutching out at the empty air in terror.

“You have served my purpose, Revered Daughter,” Raistlin said, his voice as smooth and cold as the silver blade of the dagger he wore at his wrist. “Time presses. Even now come those to the Portal at Palanthas who will try to stop me. I must challenge the Queen, fight my final battle with her minions. Then, when I have won, I must return to the Portal and enter it before anyone has a chance to stop me.”

“Raistlin, don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me alone in the darkness!”

Leaning upon the Staff of Magius, which now gleamed with a bright, radiant light, Raistlin rose to his feet. “Farewell, Revered Daughter,” he said in a soft, hissing whisper. “I need you no longer.”

Crysania heard the rustle of his black robes as he walked away. She heard the soft thud of the Staff of Magius. Through the choking, acrid smell of smoke and burned flesh, she caught the faintest scent of rose petals...

And then, there was only silence. She knew he was gone.

She was alone, her life dwindling through her veins as her illusions slowly dwindled from her mind.

“The next time you will see, Crysania, is when you are blinded by darkness... darkness unending.” So spoke Loralon, the elven cleric, at the fall of Istar. Crysania would have cried, but the fire had burned away her tears and their source.

“I see now,” she whispered into the darkness. “I see so clearly! I have deceived myself! I’ve been nothing to him—nothing but his game piece to move about the board of his great game as he chose. And even as he used me—so I used him!” She moaned. “I used him to further my pride, my ambition! My darkness only deepened his own! He is lost, and I have led him to his downfall. For if he does defeat the Dark Queen, it will be but to take her place!”

Staring up at the heavens she could not see, Crysania screamed in agony. “I have done this, Paladine! I have brought this harm upon myself, upon the world! But, oh, my god, what greater harm have I brought upon him?”

Lying there, in the eternal darkness, Crysania’s heart wept the tears her eyes could not. “I love you, Raistlin,” she murmured. “I could never tell you. I could never admit it to myself.” She tossed her head, gripped by a pain that seared her more deeply than the f lames. “What might have changed, if I had?”

The pain eased. She seemed to be slipping away, losing her grasp upon consciousness.

“Good,” she thought wearily, “I am dying. Let death come swiftly, then, and end my bitter torment.”