Time of the Twins

He heard the gully dwarf screaming on and on, like a tortured animal, and then the screams suddenly ended. He heard a deep cry of pain, a smothered groan, and a large body crashed to the ground beside him. It was Caramon, blood flowing from his mouth, his eyes wide open and staring.

Tas couldn’t feel sad. He couldn’t feel anything except the terrible pain in his head. A huge draconian stood over him, sword in hand. He knew that the creature was going to finish him off. Tas didn’t care. End the pain, he pleaded. End it quickly.

Then there was a flurry of white robes and a clear voice calling upon Paladine. The draconian disappeared abruptly with the sound of clawed feet scrambling through the brush. The white robes knelt beside him, Tas felt the touch of a gentle hand upon his head, and heard the name of Paladine again. The pain vanished. Looking up, he saw the cleric’s hand touch Caramon, saw the big man’s eyelids flutter and close in peaceful sleep.

It’s all right! Tas thought in elation. They’ve gone! We’re going to be all right. Then he felt the hand tremble. Regaining some of his senses as the cleric’s healing powers flooded through his body, the kender raised his head, peering ahead with his good eye.

Something was coming. Something had called off the draconians. Something was walking into the light of the fire.

Tas tried to cry out a warning, but his throat closed. His mind tumbled over and over. For a moment, too frightened and dizzy to think clearly, he thought someone had mixed up adventures on him.

He saw Lady Crysania rise to her feet, her white robes sweeping the dirt near his head. Slowly, she began backing away from the thing that stalked her. Tas heard her call to Paladine, but the words fell from lips stiff with terror.

Tas himself wanted desperately to close his eyes. Fear and curiosity warred in his small body. Curiosity won out. Peering out of his one good eye, Tas watched the horrible figure draw nearer and nearer to the cleric. The figure was dressed in the armor of a Solamnic Knight, but that armor was burned and blackened. As it drew near Crysania, the figure stretched forth an arm that did not end in a hand. It spoke words that did not come from a mouth. Its eyes flared orange, its transparent legs strode right through the smoldering ashes of the fire. The chill of the regions where it was forced to eternally dwell flowed from its body, freezing the very marrow in Tas’s bones.

Fearfully, Tas raised his head. He saw Lady Crysania backing away. He saw the death knight walk toward her with slow, steady steps.

The knight raised its right hand and pointed at Crysania with a pale, shimmering finger.

Tas felt a sudden, uncontrollable terror seize him. “No!” he moaned, shivering, though he had no idea what awful thing was about to happen.

The knight spoke one word.

“Die.”

At that moment, Tas saw Lady Crysania raise her hand and grasp the medallion she wore around her neck. He saw a bright flash of pure white light well from her fingers and then she fell to the ground as though stabbed by the fleshless finger.

“No!” Tasslehoff heard himself cry. He saw the orange flaring eyes turn their attention to him, and a chill, dank darkness, like the darkness of a tomb, sealed shut his eyes and closed his mouth...

8

Dalamar approached the door to the mage’s laboratory with trepidation, tracing a nervous finger over the runes of protection stitched onto the fabric of his black robes as he hastily rehearsed several spells of warding in his mind. A certain amount of caution would not have been thought unseemly in any young apprentice approaching the inner, secret chambers of a dark and powerful master. But Dalamar’s precautions were extraordinary. And with good reason. Dalamar had secrets of his own to hide, and he dreaded and feared nothing more in this world than the gaze of those golden, hourglass eyes.

And yet, deeper than his fear, an undercurrent of excitement pulsed in Dalamar’s blood as it always did when he stood before this door. He had seen wonderful things inside this chamber, wonderful... fearful...

Raising his right hand, he made a quick sign in the air before the door and muttered a few words in the language of magic. There was no reaction. The door had no spell cast upon it. Dalamar breathed a bit easier, or perhaps it was a sigh of disappointment. His master was not engaged in any potent, powerful magic, otherwise Raistlin would have cast a spell of holding upon the door. Glancing down at the floor, the dark elf saw no flickering, flaring lights beaming from beneath the heavy wooden door. He smelled nothing except the usual smells of spice and decay. Dalamar placed the five fingertips of his left hand upon the door and waited in silence.

Within the space of time it took the dark elf to draw a breath came the softly spoken command, “Enter, Dalamar.”