Margaret Weis - Test of the Twins

“What are you doing?” Tas asked, staring at Caramon curiously.

But Caramon didn’t answer. He just kept hacking away at the tree branch.

“You’re making a crutch!” Tas said, then jumped to his feet in sudden alarm. “Caramon! You cant be thinking that! That—that’s crazy! I remember when Raistlin asked you t hat question and I remember his answer when you told him yes! He said it would be the death of you, Caramon! As strong as you are, it would kill you!”

Caramon still did not reply. Wet wood flew as he sawed at the tree branch. Occasionally he glanced behind him at the new storm clouds that were approaching, slowly obliterating the constellations and creeping toward the moons.

“Caramon!” Tas grabbed the big mans arm. “Even if you went... there”—the kender found he couldn’t speak the name—“what would you do?”

“Something I should have done a long time ago,” Caramon said resolutely.

“You’re going after him, aren’t you?” Tas cried, scrambling out of the hole—a move which, more or less, put him at eye—level with Caramon, who was still chopping away at the branch. “That’s crazy, just crazy! How will you get there?” A sudden thought struck him. “Where is there anyway? You don’t even know where you’re going! You don’t know where he is!”

“I have a way to get there,” Caramon said coolly, putting his sword back in its sheath. Taking the branch in his strong hands, he bent and twisted it and finally succeeded in breaking it off. “Lend me your knife,” he muttered to Tas.

The kender handed it over with a sigh, starting to continue his protest as Caramon trimmed off small twigs, but the big man interrupted him.

“I have the magical device. As for where there is”—he eyed Tas sternly—“you know that!”

“The—the Abyss?” Tas faltered.

A dull boom of thunder made them both look apprehensively at the approaching storm, then Caramon returned to his work with renewed vigor while Tas returned to his argument. “The magical device got Gnimsh and me out of there, Caramon, but I’m positive it won’t get you in. You don’t want to go there anyway,” the kender added resolutely. “It is not a nice place.”

“Maybe it cant get me in,” Caramon began, then motioned Tas over to him. “Let’s see if this crutch I’ve made works before another storm hits. We’ll walk over to Tika’s the obelisk.”

Slashing off a part of his muddy wet cloak with his sword, the warrior bundled it over the top of the branch, tucked it under his arm and leaned his weight on it experimentally. The crude crutch sank into the mud several inches. Caramon yanked it out and took another step. It sank again, but he managed to move forward at least a little and keep his weight off his injured knee. Tas came over to help him walk and, hobbling along slowly, they inched their way across the wet, slimy ground.

Where are we going? Tas longed to ask, but he was afraid to hear the answer. For once, he didn’t find it hard to keep quiet. Unfortunately, Caramon seemed to hear his thoughts, for he answered his unspoken question.

“Maybe that device cant get me into the Abyss,” Caramon repeated, breathing heavily, “but I know someone who can. The device’ll take us to him.”

“Who?” the kender asked dubiously.

“Par-Salian. He’ll be able to tell us what has happened. He’ll be able to send me... wherever I need to go.”

“Par-Salian?” Tas looked almost as alarmed as if Caramon had said the Queen of Darkness herself. “That’s even crazier!” he started to say, only he was suddenly violently sick instead.

Caramon paused to wait for him, looking pale and ill in the moonlight himself.

Convinced that he had thrown up everything inside him from his topknot down t o his socks, Tas felt a little better. Nodding at Caramon, too tired to talk just yet, he managed to stagger on.

Trudging through the slime and the mud, they reached the obelisk. Both slumped down on the ground and leaned against it, exhausted by the exertion even that short journey of only twenty or so paces had cost them. The hot wind was rising again, the sound of thunder getting nearer.

Sweat covered Tas’s face and he had a green tinge around his lips, but he managed nonetheless, to smile at Caramon with what he hoped was innocent appeal.

“Us going to see Par-Salian?” he said offhandedly, mopping his face with his topknot. “Oh, I don’t think that would be a good idea at all. You’re in no shape to walk all that way. We don’t have any water or food and—”

“I’m not going to walk.” Caramon took the pendant out of his pocket and begin the transformation process that would turn it into a beautiful, jeweled sceptre.

Seeing this and gulping slightly, Tas continued on talking more rapidly.

“I’m certain Par-Salian is—uh—is... busy. Busy! That’s it!” He gave a ghastly grin. “Much too busy to see us now. Probably lots of things to do, what with all this chaos going on around him. So let’s just forget this and go back to someplace in time where we had fun. How about when Raistlin put the charm spell on Bupu and she fell in love with him? That was really funny! That disgusting gully dwarf following him around...

Caramon didn’t reply. Tas twisted the end of his topknot around his finger.

“Dead,” he said suddenly, heaving a mournful sigh. “Poor Par-Salian. Probably dead as a doorknob. After all,” the kender pointed out cheerfully, “he was old when we saw him back in 356.

He didn’t look at all well then, either. This must have been a real shock to him—Raistlin becoming a god and all. Probably too much for his heart. Bam—he probably just keeled right over.”

Tas peeped up at Caramon. There was a slight smile on the big man’s lips, but he said nothing, just kept turning and twisting the pieces of the pendant. A bright flash of lightning made him start.

He glanced at the storm, his smile vanishing. “I’ll bet the Tower of High Sorcery’s not even there any more!” Tas cried in desperation. “If what you say is right and the whole world is... is like this”—he waved his small hand as the foul-smelling rain began to fall—“then the Tower must have been one of the first places to go! Struck by lightning! Blooey! After all, the Tower’s much taller than most trees I’ve seen—”

“The Tower’ll be there,” Caramon said grimly, making the final adjustment to the magical device.

He held it up. Its jewels caught the rays of Solinari and, for an instant, gleamed with radiance.

Then the storm clouds swept over the moon, devouring it. The darkness was now intense, split only by the brilliant, beautiful, deadly lightning.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Caramon grabbed his crutch and struggled to his feet. Tas followed more slowly, gazing at Caramon miserably.

“You see, Tas, I’ve come to know Raistlin,” Caramon continued, ignoring the kender’s woebegone expression. “Too late, maybe, but I know him now. He hated that Tower, just as he hated those mages for what they did to him there. But even as he hates it, he loves it all the same—because it is part of his Art, Tas. And his Art, his magic, means more to him than life itself. No, the Tower will be there.”

Lifting the device in his hands, Caramon began the chant, “‘Thy time is thine own. Though across it you travel—’” But he was interrupted.

“Oh, Caramon!” Tas wailed, clutching at him. “Don’t take me back to Par-Salian! He’ll do something awful to me! I know it! He might turn me into a—a bat!” Tas paused. “And, while I suppose it might be interesting being a bat, I’m not certain I could get used to sleeping upside down, hanging by my feet. And I am rather fond of being a kender, now that I think of it, and—”