Margaret Weis: War of the Twins

“I will join you,” the mountain dwarf said coldly, “if only to make certain you plot no further treachery!”

What else the two said was lost on Tas, who leaned back against the wall. His legs had gone all prickly-feeling, and there was a buzzing noise in his ears.

“Caramon!” he whispered, clutching at his head, trying to think. “They’re going to kill him! And Raistlin’s done this!” Tas shuddered. “Poor Caramon. His own twin. If he knew that, it would probably just kill him dead on the spot. The dwarves wouldn’t need axes.”

Suddenly, the kender’s head snapped up. “Tasslehoff Burrfoot!” he said angrily. “What are you doing—standing around like a gully dwarf with one foot in the mud! You’ve got to save him! You promised Tika you’d take care of him, after all.”

“Save him? How, you doorknob?” boomed a voice inside of him that sounded suspiciously like Flint’s. “There must be twenty dwarves! And you armed with that rabbit-killer!”

“I’ll think of something,” Tas retorted. “So just keep sitting under your tree!”

There was a snorting sound. Resolutely ignoring it, the kender stood up tall and straight, pulled out his little knife, and crept quietly—as only kender can—down the corridor.

She had the dark, curly hair and the crooked smile that men would later find so charming in her daughter. She had the simple, guileless honesty that would characterize one of her sons and she had a gift—a rare and wonderful power—that she would pass on to the other.

She had magic in her blood, as did her son. But she was weak—weak-willed, weak-spirited. Thus she let the magic control her, and thus, finally, she died.

Neither the strong-souled Kitiara nor the physically strong Caramon was much affected by their mother’s death. Kitiara hated her mother with bitter jealousy, while Caramon, though he cared about his mother, was far closer to his frail twin. Besides, his mother’s weird ramblings and mystical trances made her a complete enigma to the young warrior.

But her death devastated Raistlin. The only one of her children who truly understood her, he pitied her for her weakness, even as he despised her for it. And he was furious at her for dying, furious at her for leaving him alone in this world, alone with the gift. He was angry and, deep within, he was filled with fear, for Raistlin saw in her his own doom.

Following the death of her father, his mother had gone into a grief-stricken trance from which she never emerged. Raistlin had been helpless. He could do nothing but watch her dwindle away. Refusing food she drifted, lost, onto magical planes only she could see. And the mage—her son—was shaken to his very core.

He sat up with her on that last night. Holding her wasted hand in his, he watched as her sunken, feverish eyes stared at wonders conjured up by magic gone berserk.

That night, Raistlin vowed deep within his soul that no one and nothing would ever have the power to manipulate him like this—not his twin brother, not his sister, not the magic, not the gods. He and he alone would be the guiding force of his life.

He vowed this, swearing it with a bitter, binding oath. But he was a boy still—a boy left alone in darkness as he sat there with his mother the night she died. He watched her draw her last, shuddering breath. Holding her thin hand with its delicate fingers (so like his own!), he pleaded softly through his tears, “Mother, come home... Come home!”

Now at Zhaman he heard these words again, challenging him, mocking him, daring him. They rang in his ears, reverberated in his brain with wild, discordant clangings. His head bursting with pain, he stumbled into a wall.

Raistlin had once seen Lord Ariakas torture a captured knight by locking the man inside a bell tower. The dark clerics rang the bells of praise to their Queen that night—all night. The next morning, the man had been found dead—a look of horror upon his face so profound and awful that even those steeped in cruelty were quick to dispose of the corpse.

Raistlin felt as if he were imprisoned within his own bell tower, his own words ringing his doom in his skull. Reeling, clutching his head, he tried desperately to blot out the sound.

“Come home... come home...”

Dizzy and blinded by the pain, the mage sought to outrun it. He staggered about with no clear idea of where he was, searching only for escape. His numb feet lost their footing. Tripping over the hem of his black robe, he fell to his knees.

An object leaped from a pocket in his robes and rolled out onto the stone floor. Seeing it, Raistlin gasped in fear and anger. It was another mark of his failure—the dragon orb, cracked, darkened, useless. Frantically he grabbed for it, but it skittered like a marble across the flagstone, eluding his clawing grasp. Desperate, he crawled after it and, finally, it rolled to a stop. With a snarl, Raistlin started to take hold of it, then halted. Lifting his head, his eyes opened wide. He saw where he was, and he shrank back, trembling.

Before him loomed the Great Portal.

It was exactly like the one in the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas. A huge oval door standing upon a raised dais, it was ornamented and guarded by the heads of five dragons. Their sinuous necks snaking up from the floor, the five heads faced inward, five mouths open, screaming silent tribute to their Queen.

In the Tower at Palanthas, the door to the Portal was closed. None could open it except from within the Abyss itself, coming the opposite direction—an egress from a place none ever left. This door, too, was closed, but there were two who could enter—a White-Robed Cleric of Infinite Goodness and a Black Robed Archmage of Infinite Evil. It was an unlikely combination. Thus the great wizards hoped to seal forever this terrible entrance onto an immortal plane.

An ordinary mortal, looking into that Portal, could see nothing but stark, chill darkness.

But Raistlin was no longer ordinary. Drawing nearer and nearer his goddess, bending his energies and his studies toward this one object, the archmage was now in a state suspended between both worlds. Looking into the closed door, he could almost penetrate that darkness! It wavered in his vision. Wrenching his gaze from it, he turned his attention back to retrieving the dragon orb.

How did it escape me? he wondered angrily. He kept the orb in a bag hidden deep within a secret pocket of his robes. But then he sneered at himself, for he knew the answer. Each dragon orb was endowed with a strong sense of self-preservation. The one at Istar had escaped the Cataclysm by tricking the elven king, Lorac, into stealing it and taking it into Silvanesti. When the orb could no longer use the insane Lorac, it had attached itself to Raistlin. It had sustained Raistlin’s life when he was dying in Astinus’s library. It had conspired with Fistandantilus to take the young man to the Queen of Darkness. Now, sensing the greatest danger of its existence, it was trying to flee him.

He would not allow it! Reaching out, his hand closed firmly over the dragon orb.

There was a shriek...

The Portal opened.

Raistlin looked up. It had not opened to admit him. No, it had opened to warn him—to show him the penalty of failure.

Prostrate upon his knees, clutching the orb to his chest, Raistlin felt the presence and the majesty of Takhisis, Queen of Darkness rise up before hire. Awe-stricken, he cowered, trembling, at the Dark Queen’s feet.

This is your doom! Her words hissed in his mind. Your mother’s fate will be your own. Swallowed by your magic, you will be held forever spellbound without even the sweet consolation of death to end your suffering!

Raistlin collapsed. He felt his body shrivel. Thus he had seen the withered body of Fistandantilus shrivel at the touch of the bloodstone.