Time of the Twins

“Everything’s in hand. Move along, move along. Market’s about to close for the day. You best finish your shopping while there’s still time.”

“I didn’t hurt her!” Caramon said bleakly. He was shivering in terror. “I didn’t hurt her,” he repeated, tears streaking down his face.

“Yeah!” the captain said bitterly. “Take these two to the prisons,” he ordered his guards.

Tas whimpered. One of the guards grabbed him roughly, but the kender—confused and stunned—caught hold of Denubis’s robes and refused to let go. The cleric, his hand resting on Lady Crysania’s lifeless form, turned around when he felt the kender’s clinging hands.

“Please,” Tas begged, “please, he’s telling the truth.”

Denubis’s stern face softened. “You are a loyal friend,” he said gently. “A rather unusual trait to find in a kender. I hope your faith in this man is justified.” Absently, the cleric stroked Tas’s topknot of hair, his expression sad. “But, you must realize that sometimes, when a man has been drinking, the liquor makes him do things—”

“Come along, you!” the guard snarled, jerking Tas backward. “Quit your little act. It won’t work.”

“Don’t let this upset you, Revered Son,” the captain said. “You know kender!”

“Yes,” Denubis replied, his eyes on Tas as the two guards led the kender and Caramon away through the rapidly thinning crowd in the marketplace. “I do know kender. And that’s a remarkable one.” Then, shaking his head, the cleric turned his attention back to Lady Crysania. “If you will continue holding her, Captain,” he said softly, “I will ask Paladine to convey us to the Temple with all speed.”

Tas, twisting around in the guard’s grip, saw the cleric and the Captain of the Guard standing alone in the marketplace. There was a shimmer of white light, and they were gone.

Tas blinked and, forgetting to look where he was going, stumbled over his feet. He tumbled to the cobblestone pavement, skinning his knees and his hands painfully. A firm grip on his collar jerked him upright, and a firm hand gave him a shove in the back.

“Come along. None of your tricks.”

Tas moved forward, too miserable and upset to even look around at his surroundings. His gaze went to Caramon, and the kender felt his heart ache. Overwhelmed by shame and fear, Caramon plodded down the street blindly, his steps unsteady.

“I didn’t hurt her!” Tas heard him mumble. “There must be some sort of mistake...”

2

The beautiful elven voices rose higher and higher, their sweet notes spiraling up the octaves as though they would carry their prayers to the heavens simply by ascending the scales. The faces of the elven women, touched by the rays of the setting sun slanting through the tall crystal windows, were tinged a delicate pink, their eyes shone with fervent inspiration.

The listening pilgrims wept for the beauty, causing the choir’s white and blue robes—white robes for the Revered Daughters of Paladine, blue robes for the Daughters of Mishakal—to blur in their sight. Many would swear later that they had seen the elven women transported skyward, swathed in fluffy clouds.

When their song reached a crescendo of sweetness, a chorus of deep, male voices joined in, keeping the prayers that had been sweeping upward like freed birds tied to the ground—clipping the wings, so to speak, Denubis thought sourly. He supposed he was jaded. As a young man, he, too, had cleansed his soul with tears when he first heard the Evening Hymn. Then, years later, it had become routine. He could well remember the shock he had experienced when he first realized his thoughts had wandered to some pressing piece of church business during the singing. Now it was worse than routine. It had become an irritant, cloying and annoying. He had come to dread this time of day, in fact, and took advantage of every opportunity to escape.

Why? He blamed much of it on the elven women. Racial prejudice, he told himself morosely. Yet, he couldn’t help it. Every year a party of elven women, Revered Daughters and those in training, journeyed from the glorious lands of Silvanesti to spend a year in Istar, devoting themselves to the church. This meant they sang the Evening Hymn nightly and spent their days reminding all around them that the elves were the favored of the gods—created first of all the races, granted a lifespan of hundreds of years. Yet nobody but Denubis seemed to take offense at this.