Margaret Weis: Test of the Twins

The storm struck swiftly and with unbelievable fury. A blast of hot wind blew Tas off his feet and slammed Caramon back against the obelisk. Then the rain hit, pelting them with drops like molten lead. Hail beat on their heads, battering and bruising flesh.

More dreadful, though, than wind or rain was the deadly, multicolored lightning that leaped from cloud to ground, striking the tree stumps, shattering them into brilliant balls of flame visible for miles. The booming rumble of thunder was constant, shaking the very ground, numbing the senses.

Desperately trying to find shelter from the storm’s violence, Tas and Caramon huddled beneath a fallen vallenwood, crouching in a hole Caramon dug in the gray, oozing mud. From this scant cover, they watched in disbelief as the storm wreaked further destruction upon the already dead land. Fires swept the sides of the mountains; they could smell the stench of burning wood. Lightning struck near, exploding trees, sending great chunks of ground flying. Thunder hit their ears with concussive force.

The only blessing the storm offered was rainwater. Caramon left his helmet out, upturned, and almost immediately collected water enough to drink. But it tasted horrible—like rotten eggs, Tas shouted, holding his nose as he drank—and it did little to ease their thirst.

Neither mentioned, though both thought of it, that they had no way to store water, nor was there anything to eat. Feeling more like himself since he now knew where he was and when he was (if not exactly why he was or how he got here), Tasslehoff even enjoyed the storm for the first hour or so.

“I’ve never seen lightning that color,” he shouted above the booming thunder, and he watched it with rapt interest. “It’s as good as a street illusionist’s show!” But he soon grew bored with the spectacle.

“After all,” he yelled, “even watching trees get blasted right out of the ground loses something after about the fiftieth time you’ve seen it. If you won’t be lonely, Caramon,” he added with a jaw—cracking yawn, “I think I’ll take a little nap. You don’t mind keeping watch, do you?”

Caramon shook his head, about to reply when a shattering blast made him start. A tree stump not a hundred feet from them disappeared in a blue-green ball of flame.

That could have been us, he thought, staring at the smoldering ashes, his nose wrinkling at the smell of sulfur. We could be next! A wild desire to run came into his head, a desire so strong that his muscles twitched and he had to force himself to stay where he was.

It’s certain death out there. At least here, in this hole, we’re below ground level. But, even as he watched, he saw lightning blow a gigantic hole in the ground itself, and he smiled bitterly. No, nowhere was safe. We’ll just have to ride it out and trust in the gods.

He glanced over at Tas, prepared to say something comforting to the kender. The words died on his lips. Sighing, he shook his head. Some things never changed—kender among them. Curled up in a ball, completely oblivious to the horrors raging around him, Tas was sound asleep.

Caramon crouched down farther into the hole, his eyes on the churning, lightning-laced clouds above him. To take his mind off his fear, he began to try to sort out what had happened, how they had landed in this predicament. Closing his eyes to the blinding lightning, he saw—once again—his twin standing before the dread Portal. He could hear Raistlin’s voice, calling on the five dragons heads that guarded the Portal to open it and permit his entry into the Abyss. He saw Crysania, cleric of Paladine, praying to her god, lost in the ecstasy of her faith, blind to his brother’s evil. Caramon shuddered, hearing Raistlin’s words as clearly as if the archmage were standing beside him.

She will enter the Abyss with me. She will go before me and fight my battles. She will face dark clerics, dark magic-users, spirits of the dead doomed to wander in that cursed land, plus the unbelievable torments that my Queen can devise. All these will wound her in body, devour her mind, and shred her soul. Finally, when she can endure no more, she will slump to the ground to lie at my feet... bleeding, wretched, dying.

She will, with her last strength, hold out her hand to me for comfort. She will not as k me to save her. She is too strong for that. She will give her life for me willingly, gladly. All she will ask is that I stay with her as she dies...

But I will walk past her without a look, without a word. Why? Because I will need her no longer...

It was after hearing these words that Caramon had understood at last that his brother was past redemption. And so he had left him.

Let him go into the Abyss, Caramon had thought bitterly. Let him challenge the Dark Queen. Let him become a god. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care what happens to him any longer. I am finally free of him—as he is free of me.

Caramon and Tas had activated the magical device, reciting the rhyme Par-Salian had taught the big man. He had heard the stones singing, just as he had heard them sing during the two other times he had been present at the casting of the time-travel spell.

But then, something had happened. Something that was different. Now that he had time to think and consider, he remembered wondering in sudden panic if something was wrong, but he couldn’t think what.

Not that I could have done anything about it anyway, he thought bitterly. I never understood magic—never trusted it either, for that matter.

Another nearby lightning strike shattered his concentration and even caused Tas to jump in his sleep. Muttering in irritation, the kender covered his eyes with his hands and slept on, looking like a dormouse curled up in its burrow.

With a sigh, Caramon forced his thoughts away from storms and dormice back to those last few moments when the magical spell had been activated.

I remember feeling pulled, he realized suddenly, pulled out of shape, as if some force were trying to drag me one way while another was tugging at me from the opposite direction. What was Raistlin doing then? Caramon struggled to recall. A dim image of his brother came to his mind.

He saw Raistlin, his face twisted in horror, staring at the Portal in shock. He saw Crysania, standing in the Portal, but she was no longer praying to her god. Her body seemed wracked by pain, her eyes were wide with terror.

Caramon shivered and licked his lips. The bitter-tasting water had left some kind of film behind that made his mouth taste as if he’d been chewing on rusty nails. Spitting, he wiped his mouth with his hand and leaned back wearily. Another blast made him flinch. And so did the answer. His brother had failed.

The same thing had happened to Raistlin that had happened to Fistandantilus. He had lost control of the magic. The magical field of the time-travel device had undoubtedly disrupted the spell he was casting. That was the only probable explanation Caramon frowned. No, surely Raistlin must have foreseen the possibility of that happening. If so, he would have stopped them from using the device, killed them just as he had killed Tas’s friend, the gnome.

Shaking his head to clear it, Caramon started over, working through the problem much as he had worked through the hated ciphering his mother’d taught him when he was a child. The magical field had been disrupted, that much was obvious. It had thrown him and the kender too far forward in time, sending them into their future.

Which means, I suppose, that all I have to do is activate the device and it will take us back to the present, back to Tika, back to Solace...

Opening his eyes, he looked around. But would they face this same future when they returned?

Caramon shivered. He was soaked through from the torrential rain. The night was growing chill, but it wasn’t the cold that was tormenting him. He knew what it was to live knowing what was going to happen in the future. He knew what it was to live without hope. How could he go back and face Tika and his friends, knowing that this awaited them? He thought of the corpse beneath the monument. How could he go back knowing what awaited him?