Time of the Twins

Arack’s grin twisted suddenly into a vicious scowl. “I don’t give a damn about the little bastard! I got my money’s worth outta him, I figure, in what he stole for me already. But you—I’ve got quite an investment in you. Your little escape plan’s failed, slave.”

“Escape?” Caramon laughed hollowly. “I never—You don’t understand—”

“So I don’t understand?” Arack snarled. “I don’t understand that you’ve been trying to get two of my best fighters to leave? Trying to ruin me, are you?” The dwarf’s voice rose to a shrill shriek above the howl of the wind outside. “Who put you up to this?” Arack’s expression became suddenly shrewd and cunning. “It wasn’t your master, so don’t lie. He’s been to see me.”

“Raist—er—Fist—Fistandantil—” Caramon stammered, his jaw dropping.

The dwarf smiled smugly. “Yeah. And Fistandantilus warned me you might try something like this. Said I should watch you carefully. He even suggested a fitting punishment for you. The final fight tomorrow will not be between your team and the minotaurs. It will be you against Kiiri and Pheragas and the Red Minotaur!” The dwarf leaned over, leering into Caramon’s face. “And their weapons will be real!”

Caramon stared at Arack uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then, “Why?” he murmured bleakly. “Why does he want to kill me?”

“Kill you?” The dwarf cackled. “He doesn’t want to kill you! He thinks you’ll win! ‘It’s a test,’ he says to me, ‘I don’t want a slave who isn’t the best! And this will prove it. Caramon showed me what he could do against the Barbarian. That was his first test. Let’s make this test harder on him,’ he says. Oh, he’s a rare one, your master!”

The dwarf chuckled, slapping his knees at the thought, and even Raag gave a grunt that might have been indicative of amusement.

“I won’t fight,” Caramon said, his face hardening into firm, grim lines. “Kill me! I won’t fight my friends. And they won’t fight me!”

“He said you’d say that!” The dwarf roared. “Didn’t he, Raag! The very words. By gar, he knows you! You’d think you two was kin! ‘So,’ he says to me, ‘if he refuses to fight, and he will, I have no doubt, then you tell him that his friends will fight in his stead, only they will fight the Red Minotaur and it will be the minotaur who has the real weapons.’”

Caramon remembered vividly the young man writhing in agony on the stone floor as the poison from the minotaur’s trident coursed through his body.

“As for your friends fighting you”—the dwarf sneered—“Fistandantilus took care of that, too. After what he told them, I think they’re gonna be real eager to get in the arena!”

Caramon’s head sank to his chest. He began to shake. His body convulsed with chills, his stomach wrenched. The enormity of his brother’s evil overwhelmed him, his mind filled with darkness and despair.

Raistlin has deceived us all, deceived Crysania, Tas, me! It was Raistlin who made me kill the Barbarian. He lied to me! And he’s lied to Crysania, too. He’s no more capable of loving her than the dark moon is capable of lighting the night skies. He’s using her! And Tas? Tas! Caramon closed his eyes. He remembered Raistlin’s look when he discovered the kender, his words—“kender can alter time... is this how they plan to stop me?” Tas was a danger to him, a threat! He had no doubt, now, where Tas had gone...

The wind outside howled and shrieked, but not as loudly as the pain and anguish in Caramon’s soul. Sick and nauseous, wracked by icy spasms of needle-sharp pain, the big warrior completely lost any comprehension of what was going on around him. He didn’t see Arack’s gesture, nor feel Raag’s huge hands grab hold of him. He didn’t even feel the bindings on his wrists...

It was only later, when the awful feelings of sickness and horror passed, that he woke to a realization of his surroundings. He was in tiny, windowless cell far underground, probably beneath the arena. Raag was fastening a chain to the iron collar around his neck and was bolting that chain to a ring in the stone wall. Then the ogre shoved him to the floor and checked the leather thongs that bound Caramon’s wrists.

“Not too tight,” Caramon heard the dwarf’s voice warn, “he’s got to fight tomorrow...”

There was a distant rumble of thunder, audible even this far beneath the ground. At the sound, Caramon looked up hopefully. We can’t fight in this weather—

The dwarf grinned as he followed Raag out the wooden door. He started to slam it shut, then poked his head around the corner, his beard wagging in glee as he saw the look on Caramon’s face.

“Oh, by the way. Fistandantilus says it’s going to be a beautiful day tomorrow. A day that everyone on Krynn will long remember...”

The door slammed shut and locked.