Test of the Twins

by Margaret Weis

  “How—how can you be sure?” he faltered, still fighting, still refusing to believe.

  “I’m sure,” Caramon said bitterly. “Look at this.” The handle wiggled, the head wobbled when he touched it. “I made it when I was—was still drinking.” He wiped his eyes with his hand. “It isn’t made very well. The head used to come off about half the time. But then”—he choked—“I never did much work with it anyway.”

  Weakened from the running, Caramon’s injured leg suddenly gave out. This time, he didn’t even try to catch himself, but just slumped down into the mud. Sitting in the clear patch of ground that had once been his home, he clutched the hammer in his hand and began to cry.

  Tas turned his head away. The big man’s grief was sacred, too private a thing for even his eyes. Ignoring his own tears, which were trickling past his nose, Tas stared around bleakly. He had never felt so helpless, so lost and alone. What had happened? What had gone wrong? Surely there must be a clue, an answer.

  “I—I’m going to look around,” he mumbled to Caramon, who didn’t hear him.

  With a sigh, Tas trudged off. He knew where he was now, of course. He could refuse to admit it no longer. Caramon’s house had been located near the center of town, close to the Inn. Tas continued walking along what had once been a street running between rows of houses. Even though there was nothing left now—not the houses, not the street, not the vallenwoods that held the houses—he knew exactly where he was. He wished he didn’t. Here and there he saw branches poking up out of the mud, and he shivered. For there was nothing else. Nothing except …

  “Caramon!” Tas called, thankful to have something to investigate and to, hopefully, take Caramon’s mind off his sorrow. “Caramon, I think you should come see this!”

  But the big man continued to ignore him, so Tas went off to examine the object by himself. Standing at the very end of the street, in what had once been a small park, was a stone obelisk. Tas remembered the park, but he didn’t remember the obelisk. It hadn’t been there the last time he’d been in Solace, he realized, examining it.

  Tall, crudely carved, it had, nevertheless, survived the ravages of fire and wind and storm. Its surface was blackened and charred but, Tas saw as he neared it, there were letters carved into it, letters that, once he had cleaned away the muck, he thought he could read.

  Tas brushed away the soot and muddy film covering the stone, stared at it for a long moment, then called out softly, “Caramon.”

  The odd note in the kender’s voice penetrated Caramon’s haze of grief. He lifted his head. Seeing the strange obelisk and seeing Tas’s unusually serious face, the big man painfully heaved himself up and limped toward it.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Tas couldn’t answer, he could only shake his head and point.

  Caramon came around to the front and stood, silently reading the roughly carved letters and unfinished inscription.

  Hero of the Lance

  Tika Waylan Majere

  Death Year 358

  Your life’s tree felled too soon.

  I fear, lest in my hands the axe be found.

  “I—I’m sorry, Caramon,” Tas murmured, slipping his hand into the big man’s limp, nerveless fingers.

  Caramon’s head bowed. Putting his hand on the obelisk, he stroked its cold, wet surface as the wind whipped around them. A few raindrops splattered against the stone. “She died alone,” he said. Doubling his fist, he bashed it into the rock, cutting his flesh on the sharp edges. “I left her alone! I should have been here! Damn it, I should have been here!”

  His shoulders began to heave with sobs. Tas, looking over at the storm clouds and realizing that they were moving again, and coming closer, held Caramon’s hand tightly.

  “I don’t think there would have been anything you could have done, Caramon, if you had been here—” the kender began earnestly.

  Suddenly, he bit his words off, nearly biting his tongue in the process. Withdrawing his hand from Caramon’s—the big man never even noticed—the kender knelt down in the mud. His quick eyes had caught sight of something shining in the sickly rays of the pale sun. Reaching down with a trembling hand, Tas hurriedly scooped away the muck.

  “Name of the gods,” he said in awe, leaning back on his heels. “Caramon, you were here!”

  “What?” he growled.

  Tas pointed.

  Lifting his head, Caramon turned and looked down.

  There, at his feet, lay his own corpse.

  CHAPTER

  3

  t least it appeared to be Caramon’s corpse. It was wearing the armor he had acquired in Solamnia—armor he had worn during the Dwarfgate War, armor he had been wearing when he and Tas left Zhaman, armor he was wearing now.…

  But, beyond that, there was nothing specific that identified the body. Unlike the bodies Tas had discovered that had been preserved beneath layers of mud, this corpse lay relatively close to the surface and had decomposed. All that was left was the skeleton of what had obviously been a large man lying at the foot of the obelisk. One hand, holding a chisel, rested directly beneath the stone monument as if his final act had been to carve out that last dreadful phrase.

  There was no sign of what had killed him.

  “What’s going on, Caramon?” Tas asked in a quivering voice. “If that’s you and you’re dead, how can you be here at the same time?” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Oh, no! What if you’re not here!” He clutched at his topknot, twisting it round and round. “If you’re not here, then I’ve made you up. My!” Tas gulped. “I never knew I had such a vivid imagination. You certainly look real.” Reaching out a trembling hand, he touched Caramon. “You feel real and, if you don’t mind my saying so, you even smell real!” Tas wrung his hands. “Caramon! I’m going crazy,” he cried wildly. “Like one of those dark dwarves in Thorbardin!”

  “No, Tas,” Caramon muttered. “This is real. All too real.” He stared at the corpse, then at the obelisk that was now barely visible in the rapidly fading light. “And it’s starting to make sense. If only I could—” He paused, staring intently at the obelisk. “That’s it! Tas, look at the date on the monument!”

  With a sigh, Tas lifted his head. “358,” he read in a dull voice. Then his eyes opened wide. “358?” he repeated. “Caramon—it was 356 when we left Solace!”

  “We’ve come too far, Tas,” Caramon murmured in awe. “We’ve come into our own future.”

  The boiling black clouds they had been watching mass along the horizon like an army gathering its full strength for the attack surged in just before nightfall, mercifully obliterating the final few moments of the shrunken sun’s existence.

  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 dragon’s 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 ask 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?

  If that had been him. He remembered the last conversation between himself and his brother. Tas had altered time—so Raistlin had said. Because kender, dwarves, and gnomes were races created by accident, not design, they were not in the flow of time as were the human, elf, and ogre races. Thus kender were prohibited from traveling back in time because they had the power to alter it.

  But Tas had been send back by accident, leaping into the magical field just as Par-Salian, head of the Tower of High Sorcery, was casting the spell to send back Caramon and Crysania. Tas had altered time. Therefore, Raistlin knew he wasn’t locked into the doom of Fistandantilus. He had the power to change the outcome. Where Fistandantilus had died, Raistlin might live.

  Caramon’s shoulders slumped. He felt suddenly sick and dizzy. What did it mean? What was he doing here? How could he be dead and alive at the same time? Was that even his corpse? Since Tas had altered time, it could be someone else. But—most importantly—what had happened to Solace?

  “Did Raistlin cause this?” Caramon muttered to himself, just to hear the sound of his voice amid the flashing light and concussive blasts. “Does this have something to do with him? Did this happen because he failed or—”

  Caramon caught his breath. Beside him, Tas stirred in his sleep and whimpered and cried out. Caramon patted him absently. “A bad dream,” he said, feeling the kender’s small body twitch beneath his hand. “A bad dream, Tas. Go back to sleep.”

&
nbsp; Tas rolled over, pressing his small body close against Caramon’s, his hands still covering his eyes. Caramon continued to pat him soothingly.

  A bad dream. He wished that were all this was. He wished, most desperately, that he would wake up in his own bed, his head pounding from drinking too much. He wished he could hear Tika slamming plates around in the kitchen, cursing him for being a lazy, drunken bum even while she fixed his favorite breakfast. He wished that he could have gone on in that wretched, spirit-soaked existence because then he would have died, died without knowing.…

  Oh, please let it be a dream! Caramon prayed, lowering his head to his knees and feeling bitter tears creep beneath his closed eyelids.

  He sat there, no longer even affected by the storm, crushed by the weight of his sudden understanding. Tas sighed and shivered, but continued to sleep quietly. Caramon did not move. He did not sleep. He couldn’t. The dream he walked in was a waking dream, a waking nightmare. He needed only one thing to confirm the knowledge that he knew, in his heart, needed no confirmation.

  The storm passed gradually, moving on to the south. Caramon could literally feel it go, the thunder walking the land like the feet of giants. When it was ended, the silence rang in his ears louder than the blasts of the lightning. The sky would be clear now, he knew. Clear until the next storm. He would see the moons, the stars.…

  The stars …

  He had only to raise his head and look up into the sky, the clear sky, and he would know.

  For another moment he sat there, willing the smell of spiced potatoes to come to him, willing Tika’s laughter to banish the silence, willing a drunken aching in his head to replace the terrible ache in his heart.

  But there was nothing. Only the silence of this dead, barren land, broken by the distant, faraway rumble of thunder.

  With a small sigh, barely audible even to himself, Caramon raised his head and looked up into the heavens.

  He swallowed the bitter saliva in his mouth, nearly choking. Tears stung his eyes, but he blinked them back so that he could see clearly.