Margaret Weis - Test of the Twins

“A white chicken feather, an emerald, a dead rat—yick, where did I get that? A ring carved to look like ivy leaves, a tiny golden dragon—that’s funny, I certainly don’t remember putting that in my pouch. A piece of broken blue crystal, a dragons tooth, white rose petals, some kid’s old worn-out, plush rabbit, and—oh, look. Here’s Gnimsh’s plans for the mechanical lift and—what’s this? A book! Sleight-of-Hand Techniques to Amaze and Delight! Now isn’t that interesting? I’m sure this will really come in handy and, oh, no”—Tas frowned irritably—“there’s that silver bracelet of Tanis’s again. I wonder how he manages to hang onto anything without me around, constantly picking up after him? He’s extremely careless. I’m surprised Laurana puts up with it.”

He peered into the pouch. “That’s all, I guess.” He sighed. “Well, it certainly has been interesting. Mostly—it was truly wonderful. I met several dragons. I flew in a citadel. I turned myself into a mouse. I broke a dragon orb. Paladine and I became close, personal friends.

“There were some sad times,” he said to himself softly. “But they aren’t even sad to me now. They just give me a little funny ache, right here.” He pressed his hand on his heart. “I’m going to miss adventuring very much. But there’s no one to adventure with anymore. They’ve all settled down, their lives are bright and pleasant.” His small hand explored the smooth bottom of one final pouch. “It’s time for me to settle down, too, like I said, and I think High Sheriff would be a most fascinating job and—

“Wait... what’s that? In the very bottom... .” He pulled out a small object, almost lost, tucked into a corner of the pouch. Holding it in his hand, staring at it in wonder, Tas drew in a deep, quivering breath.

“How did Caramon lose this? He was so very careful of it. But then, he’s had a lot on his mind lately. I’ll just go give it back to him. He’s probably fearfully worried over misplacing it. After all, what would Par-Salian say...”

Studying the plain, nondescript pendant in his palm, Tas never noticed that his other hand—apparently acting of its own accord since he had quit adventuring—skittered around behind him and closed over the map case.

“What was the name of that place? Merilon?”

It must have been the hand that spoke. Certainly not Tas, who had given up adventuring. The map case went into a pouch, along with all of Tas’s other treasures; the hand scooping them up hastily and stowing them away.

The hand also gathered up all of Tas’s pouches, slinging them over his shoulders, hanging them from his belt, stuffing one into the pocket of his brand-new bright red leggings.

The hand busily began to change the plain, nondescript pendant into a sceptre that was really quite beautiful-all covered with jewels—and looked very magical.

“Once you’re finished,” Tas told his hand severely, “we’ll take it right upstairs and give it to Caramon—”

“Where’s Tas?” Tika murmured from the warmth and comfort of Caramon’s strong arms. Caramon, resting his cheek against her head, kissed her red curls and held her tighter. “I don’t know. Went down to the house, I think.”

“You realize,” said Tika, snuggling closer, “that we won’t have a spoon left.”

Caramon smiled. Putting his hand on her chin, he raised her head and kissed her lips...

An hour later, the two were walking around the floor of the unfinished house, Caramon pointing out the improvements and changes he planned to make. “The baby’s room will go here,” he said, “next to our bedroom, and this will be the room for the older kids. No, I guess two rooms, one for the boys and one for the girls.” He pretended to ignore Tika’s blush. “And the kitchen and Tas’s room and the guest room Tanis and Laurana are coming to visit—and... .” Caramon’s voice died. He had come to the one room in the house he had actually finished—the room with the wizard’s mark carved on a plaque which hung above the door.

Tika looked at him, her laughing face suddenly grown pale and serious.

Reaching up, Caramon slowly took down the plaque. He looked at it silently for long moments, then, with a smile, he handed it to Tika.

“Keep this for me, will you, my dear?” he asked softly and gently.

She looked up at him in wonder, her trembling fingers going over the smooth edges of the plaque, tracing out the arcane symbol inscribed upon it.

“Will you tell me what happened, Caramon?” she asked.

“Someday,” he said, gathering her into his arms, holding her close. “Someday,” he repeated.

Then, kissing the red curls, he stood, looking out over the town, watching it waken and come to life. Through the sheltering leaves of the vallenwood, he could see the gabled roof of the Inn. He could hear voices now, sleepy voices, laughing, scolding. He could smell the smoke of cooking fires as it rose into the air, filling the green valley with a soft haze.

He held his wife in his arms, feeling her love surround him, seeing his love for her shining before him always, shining pure and white like the light from Solinari... or the light shining from the crystal atop a magical staff...

Caramon sighed, deeply, contentedly. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he murmured. “I’m home.”

We would like to acknowledge the original members of the DRAGONLANCE story design team: Tracy Hickman, Harold Johnson, Jeff Grubb, Michael Williams, Gali Sanchez, Gary Spiegle, and Carl Smith.

We want to thank those who came to join us in Krynn: Doug Niles, Laura Hickman, Michael Dobson, Bruce Nesmith, Bruce Heard, Michael Breault, and Roger E. Moore.

We would like to thank our editor, Jean Blashfield Black, who has been with us through all our trials and triumphs. And, finally, we want to express our deep thanks to all of those who have offered encouragement and support: David “Zeb” Cook, Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson, Clyde Caldwell, Jeff Easley, Ruth Hoyer, Carolyn Vanderbilt, Patrick L. Price, Bill Larson, Steve Sullivan, Denis Beauvais, Valerie Valusek, Dezra and Terry Phillips, Janet and Gary Pack, our families, and, last but not least—all of you who have written to us.

And so, our travels in Krynn have come to an end.

We know that this will disappoint many of you, who have been hoping that our adventures in this wonderful land would last forever. But, as Tasslehoff’s mother might say, “There comes a time when you have to toss out the cat, lock up the door, put the key under the mat, and start off down the road.”

Of course, the key will always remain under the doormat (provided no other kender move into town), and we are not discounting the possibility that someday we might journey down this road in search of that key. But we have Tas’s magical time-traveling device in our pouches now (fortunately for Krynn!), and there are more worlds we are eager to explore before we return to this one.

We had no idea, when the DRAGONLANCE project was started, that it would be as successful as it has been. There are many reasons for this, but the main one, I think, is that we had a truly great team working on the project. From the writers to the artists to the game designers to the editors—everyone on the DRAGONLANCE team cared about their work and went above and beyond the call of duty to make certain it succeeded. Tracy says that—somewhere—Krynn really exists and that all of us have been there. We know this is true, because it is so hard saying good-bye.