Margaret Weis - Test of the Twins

Swiftly, the half-elf crossed the room and stood before the Portal once again.

He could see Caramon, still a tiny figure in gleaming armor. This time, he carried someone in his arms.

“Raistlin?” Tanis asked, puzzled.

“Lady Crysania,” Dalamar replied.

“Maybe she’s still alive!”

“It would be better for her were she not,” Dalamar said coldly. Bitterness further hardened his voice and his expression. “Better for all of us! Now Caramon must make a difficult choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“It will inevitably occur to him that he could save her by bringing her back through the Portal himself. Which would leave us all at the mercy of either his brother or the Queen or both.”

Tanis was silent, watching. Caramon was drawing closer and closer to the Portal, the white-robed figure of the woman in his arms.

“What do you know of him?” Dalamar asked abruptly. “What decision will he make? The last I saw of him he was a drunken buffoon, but his experiences appear to have changed him.”

“I don’t know,” Tanis said, troubled, talking more to himself than to Dalamar. “The Caramon I once knew was only half a person, the other half belonged to his brother. He is different now. He has changed.” Tanis scratched his beard, frowning. “Poor man. I don’t know...”

“Ah, it seems his choice has been made for him,” Dalamar said, relief mixed with fear in his voice. Looking into the Portal, Tanis saw Raistlin. He saw the final meeting between the twins.

Tanis never spoke to anyone of that meeting. Though the visions seen and words heard were indelibly etched upon his memory, he found he could not talk about them. To give them voice seemed to demean them, to take away their terrible horror, their terrible beauty. But often, if he was depressed or unhappy, he would remember the last gift of a benighted soul, and he would close his eyes and thank the gods for his blessings.

Caramon brought Lady Crysania through the Portal. Running forward to help him, Tanis took Crysania in his arms, staring in wonder at the sight of the big man carrying the magical staff, its light still glowing brightly.

“Stay with her, Tanis,” Caramon said, “I must close the Portal.”

“Do it quickly!” Tanis heard Dalamar’s sharp intake of breath. He saw the dark elf staring into the Portal in horror. “Close it!” he cried.

Holding Crysania in his arms, Tanis looked down at her and realized she was dying. Her breath faltered, her skin was ashen, her lips were blue. But he could do nothing for her, except take her to a place of safety.

Safety! He glanced about, his gaze going to the shadowed corner where another dying woman had lain. It was farthest from the Portal. She would be safe there—as safe as anywhere, he supposed sorrowfully. Laying her down, making her as comfortable as possible, he hastily returned to the opening in the void.

Tanis halted, mesmerized by the sight before his eyes.

A shadow of evil filled the Portal, the metallic dragon’s heads that formed the gate howled in triumph. The living dragons heads beyond the Portal writhed above the body of their victim as the archmage fell to their claws.

“No! Raistlin!” Caramon’s face twisted in. anguish. He took a step toward the Portal.

“Stop!” Dalamar screamed in fury. “Stop him, Half-Elven! Kill him if you must! Close the Portal!”

A woman’s hand lunged for the opening and, as they watched in stunned terror, the hand became a dragon’s claw, the nails tipped with red, the talons stained with blood. Nearer and nearer the Portal the hand of the Queen came, intent upon keeping this door to the world open so that, once more, she could gain entry.

“Caramon!” Tanis cried, springing forward. But, what could he do? He was not strong enough to physically overpower the big man. He’ll go to him, Tanis thought in agony. He will not let his brother die...

No, spoke a voice inside the half-elf. He will not... and therein lies the salvation of the world. Caramon stopped, held fast by the power of that bloodstained hand. The grasping dragons claw was close, and behind it gleamed laughing, triumphant, malevolent eyes. Slowly, struggling against the evil force, Caramon raised the Staff of Magius.

Nothing happened!

The dragon’s heads of the oval doorway split the air with their trumpeting, hailing the entry of their Queen into the world.

Then, a shadowy form appeared, standing beside Caramon. Dressed in black robes, white hair flowing down upon his shoulders, Raistlin raised a golden-skinned hand and, reaching out, gripped the Staff of Magius, his hand resting near his twins.

The staff flared with a pure, silver light.

The multicolored light within the Portal whirled and spun and fought to survive, but the silver light shone with the steadfast brilliance of the evening star, glittering in a twilight sky.

The Portal closed.

The metallic dragon’s heads ceased their screaming so suddenly that the new silence rang in their ears. Within the Portal, there was nothing, neither movement nor stillness, neither darkness nor light. There was simply nothing.

Caramon stood before the Portal alone, the Staff of Magius in his hand. The light of the crystal continued to burn brightly for a moment.

Then glimmered.

Then died.

The room was filled with darkness, a sweet darkness, a darkness restful to the eyes after the blinding light.

And there came through the darkness a whispering voice.

“Farewell, my brother.”

Astinus of Palanthas sat in his study in the Great Library, writing his history in the clear, sharp black strokes that had recorded all the history of Krynn from the first day the gods had looked upon the world until the last, when the great book would forever close. Astinus wrote, oblivious to the chaos around him, or rather—such was the mans presence—that it seemed as if he forced the chaos to be oblivious of him.

It was only two days after the end of what Astinus referred to in the Chronicles as the “Test of the Twins” (but which everyone else was calling the “Battle of Palanthas”). The city was in ruins. The only two buildings left standing were the Tower of High Sorcery and the Great Library, and the Library had not escaped unscathed.

The fact that it stood at all was due, in large part, to the heroics of the Aesthetics. Led by the rotund Bertrem, whose courage was kindled, so it was said, by the sight of a draconian daring to lay a clawed hand upon one of the sacred books, the Aesthetics attacked the enemy with such zeal and such a wild, reckless disregard for their own lives that few of the reptilian creatures escaped.

But, like the rest of Palanthas, the Aesthetics paid a grievous price for victory. Many of their order perished in the battle. These were mourned by their brethren, their ashes given honored rest among the books that they had sacrificed their lives to protect. The gallant Bertrem did not die. Only slightly wounded, he saw his name go down in one of the great books itself beside the names of the other Heroes of Palanthas. Life could offer nothing further in the way of reward to Bertrem. He never passed that one particular book upon the shelf but that he didn’t surreptitiously pull it down, open it to The Page, and bask in the light of his glory.

The beautiful city of Palanthas was now nothing more than memory and a few words of description in Astinus’s books. Heaps of charred and blackened stone marked the graves of palatial estates. The rich warehouses with their casks of fine wines and ales, their stores of cotton and of wheat, their boxes of wonders from all parts of Krynn, lay in a pile of cinder. Burned-out hulks of ships floated in the ash choked harbors. Merchants picked through the rubble of their shops, salvaging what they could. Families stared at their ruined houses, holding on to each other, and thanking the gods that they had, at least, survived with their lives.