War of the Twins (30 page)
Authors: Margaret Weis
His eyes closed wearily, he staggered. Caramon, his face grim and suddenly haggard, caught hold of his twin and, lifting him, carried him to the waiting horses.
Crysania hurried after them, her concerned gaze on Raistlin. Despite his weakness, there was a look of sublime peace and exultation on his face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“He sleeps,” Caramon said, his voice deep and gruff, concealing some emotion she could not guess at.
Reaching the horses, Crysania stopped a moment, turning to look behind her.
Smoke rose from the charred ruins of the village. The skeletons of the buildings had collapsed into heaps of pure white ash, the trees were nothing but branched smoke drifting up to the heavens. Even as she watched, the rain beat down upon the ash, changing it to mud, washing it away. The fog blew to shreds, the smoke was swept away on the winds of the storm.
The village was gone as though it had never been.
Shivering, Crysania clutched her cloak about her and turned to Caramon, who was placing Raistlin into his saddle, shaking him, forcing him to wake up enough to ride.
“Caramon,” Crysania said as the warrior came over to help her. “What did Raistlin mean—‘another trial.’ I saw the look on your face when he said it. You know, don’t you? You understand?”
Caramon did not answer immediately. Next to them, Raistlin swayed groggily in his saddle. finally, his head bowed, the mage lapsed once more into sleep. After assisting Crysania, Caramon walked over to his own horse and mounted. Then, reaching over, he took the reins from the limp hands of his slumbering brother. They rode back up the mountain, through the rain, Caramon never once looking behind at the village.
In silence, he guided the horses up the trail. Next to him, Raistlin slumped over his mount’s neck. Caramon steadied his brother with a firm, gentle hand.
“Caramon?” Crysania asked softly as they reached the summit of the mountain.
The warrior turned to look at Crysania. Then, with a sigh, his gaze went to the south, where, far from them, lay Thorbardin. The storm clouds massed thick and dark upon the distant horizon.
“It is an old legend that, before he faced the Queen of Darkness, Huma was tested by the gods. He went through the trial of wind, the trial of fire, the trial of water. And his last test,” Caramon said quietly, “was the trial of blood.”
(Reprise)
T
hrough cinders and blood, the harvest of dragons
,
Traveled Huma, cradled by dreams of the Silver Dragon
,
The Stag perpetual, a signal before him
.
At last the eventual harbor, a temple so far to the east
That it lay where the east was ending
.
There Paladine appeared
In a pool of stars and glory, announcing
That of all choices, one most terrible had fallen to Huma
.
For Paladine knew that the heart is a nest of yearnings
,
That we can travel forever toward the light, becoming
What we can never be
.
Footsteps In The Sand …T
he Army of Fistandantilus surged southward, reaching Caergoth just as the last of the leaves were blowing from the tree limbs and the chill hand of winter was getting a firm grip upon the land.
The banks of New Sea brought the army to a halt. But Caramon, knowing he was going to have to cross it, had long had his preparations underway. Turning over command of the main part of the army to his brother and the most trusted of his subordinates, Caramon led a group of his best-trained men to the shores of New Sea. Also with him were all the blacksmiths, woodwrights, and carpenters who had joined the army.
Caramon made his command post in the city of Caergoth. He had heard of the famous port city all his life—his former life. Three hundred years after the Cataclysm would find it a bustling, thriving harbor town. But now, one hundred years after the fiery mountain had struck Krynn, Caergoth was a town in confusion. Once a small farming community in the middle of the Solamnic Plain, Caergoth was still struggling with the sudden appearance of a sea at its doorstep.
Looking down from his quarters where the roads in town ended—suddenly—in a precarious drop down steep cliffs to the beaches below, Caramon thought—incongruously—of Tarsis. The Cataclysm had robbed that town of its sea, leaving its boats stranded upon the sands like dying sea birds, while here, in Caergoth, New Sea lapped on what was once plowed ground.
Caramon thought with longing of those stranded ships in Tarsis. Here, in Caergoth, there were a few boats but not nearly enough for his needs. He sent his men ranging up and down the coast for hundreds of miles, with orders to either purchase or commandeer sea-going vessels of any type, their crews with them, if possible. These they sailed to Caergoth, where the smiths and the craftsmen re-outfitted them to carry as great a load as possible for the short journey across the
Straits of Schallsea to Abanasinia.
Daily, Caramon received reports on the build-up of the dwarven armies—how Pax Tharkas was being fortified; how the dwarves had imported slave labor (gully dwarves) to work the mines and the steel forges day and night, turning out weapons and armor; how these were being carted to Thorbardin and taken inside the mountain.
He also received reports from the emissaries of the hill dwarves and the Plainsmen. He heard about the great gathering of the tribes in Abanasinia, putting aside blood feuds to fight together for survival. He heard about the preparations of the hill dwarves, who were also forging weapons, using the same gully-dwarf slave labor as their cousins, the mountain dwarves.
He had even made discreet advances to the elves in Qualinesti. This gave Caramon an eerie feeling, for the man to whom he sent his message was none other than Solostaran, Speaker of the Suns, who had—just weeks ago—died in Caramon’s own time. Raistlin had sneered at hearing of this attempt to draw the elves into the war, knowing full well what their answer would be. The archmage had, however, not been without a secret hope, nurtured in the dark hours of the night, that
this time
it might prove different.…
It didn’t.
Caramon’s men never even had a chance to speak to Solostaran. Before they could dismount from their horses, arrows zinged through the air, thudding into the ground, forming a deadly ring around each of them. Looking into the aspen woods, they could see literally hundreds of archers, each with an arrow nocked and ready. No words were spoken. The messengers left, carrying an elven arrow to Caramon in answer.
The war itself, in fact, was beginning to give Caramon an eerie feeling. Piecing together what he had heard Raistlin and Crysania discussing, it suddenly occurred to Caramon that everything he was doing had all been done before. The thought was almost as nightmarish to him as to his brother, though for vastly different reasons.
“I feel as though that iron ring I wore round my neck in Istar had been bolted back on,” Caramon muttered to himself
one night as he sat in the inn at Caergoth that he had taken over for his command post. “I’m a slave again, same as I was then. Only this time it’s worse, because—even when I was a slave—at least I had freedom to choose whether I was going to draw breath or not that day. I mean, if I’d wanted to die, I could have fallen on my sword and died! But now I’m not even given that choice, apparently.”
It was a strange and horrifying concept for Caramon, one he dwelt on and mulled over many nights, one he knew he didn’t understand. He would like to have talked it over with his brother, but Raistlin was back at the inland camp with the army and even if they had been together, Caramon was certain his twin would have refused to discuss it.
Raistlin, during this time, had been gaining in strength almost daily. Following the use of his magical spells that consumed the dead village in a blazing funeral pyre, the arch-mage had laid almost dead to the world for two days. Upon waking from his feverish sleep, he had announced that he was hungry. Within the next few days, he ate more solid food than he had been able to tolerate in months. The cough vanished. He rapidly regained strength and added flesh to his bones.
But he was still tormented by nightmares that not even the strongest of sleeping potions could banish.
Day and night, Raistlin pondered his problem. If only he could learn Fistandantilus’s fatal mistake, he might be able to correct it!
Wild schemes came to mind. The archmage even toyed with the idea of traveling forward to his own time to research, but abandoned the idea almost immediately. If consuming a village in flame had plunged him into exhaustion for two days, the time-travel spell would prove even more wearing. And, though only a day or two might pass in the present while he recuperated, eons would flit by in the past. Finally, if he did make it back, he wouldn’t have the strength needed to battle the Dark Queen.
And then, just when he had almost given up in despair, the answer came to him.…
HAPTER
1
aistlin lifted the tent flap and walked out. The guard on duty started and shuffled uncomfortably. The appearance of the archmage was always unnerving, even to those of his own personal guard. No one ever heard him coming. He always seemed to materialize out of the air. The first indication of his presence was the touch of burning fingers upon a bare arm, or soft, whispered words, or the rustle of black robes.
The wizard’s tent was regarded with wonder and awe though no one had ever seen anything strange emanating from it. Many, of course, watched—especially the children, who secretly hoped to see a horrible monster break free of the archmage’s control and go thundering through the camp, devouring everyone in sight until
they
were able to tame it with a bit of gingerbread.
But nothing of the kind ever happened. The archmage carefully nurtured and conserved his strength. Tonight would be different, Raistlin reflected with a sigh and scowl. But it couldn’t be helped.
“Guard,” he murmured.
“M-my lord?” the guard stammered in some confusion. The archmage rarely spoke to anyone, let alone a mere guard.
“Where is Lady Crysania?”
The guard could not suppress a curl of his lip as he answered that the “witch” was, he believed, in General Caramon’s tent, having retired for the evening.
“Shall I send someone for her, my lord?” he asked Raistlin with such obvious reluctance that the mage could not help but smile, though it was hidden in the shadows of his black hood.
“No,” Raistlin replied, nodding as if pleased at this information. “And my brother, have you word of him? When is his return expected?”
“General Caramon sent word that he arrives tomorrow, my lord,” the guard continued in a mystified tone, certain that the mage knew this already. “We are to await his arrival here and let the supply train catch up with us at the same time. The first wagons rolled in this afternoon, my lord.” A sudden thought struck the guard. “If—if you’re thinking of changing these orders, my lord, I should call the Captain of the Watch—”
“No, no, nothing of the sort,” Raistlin replied soothingly. “I merely wanted to make certain that I would not be disturbed this night—for anything or by anyone. Is that clear, uh—what is your name?”
“M-michael, lordship,” the guard answered. “Certainly, my lord. If such are your orders, I will carry them out.”
“Good,” Raistlin said. The archmage was silent for a moment, staring out into the night which was cold but bright with the light from Lunitari and the stars. Solinari, waning, was nothing but a silver scratch across the sky. More important, to Raistlin’s eyes, was the moon he alone could see. Nuitari, the Black Moon, was full and round, a hole of darkness amid the stars.
Raistlin took a step nearer the guard. Casting his hood back slightly from his face, he let the light of the red moon strike his eyes. The guard, startled, involuntarily stepped backward, but his strict training as a Knight of Solamnia made him catch himself.
Raistlin felt the man’s body stiffen. He saw the reaction and smiled again. Raising a slender hand, he laid it upon the guard’s armored chest.