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.
Caramon sat alone in the dense, damp darkness. His mind was calm, the sickness and shock having wiped it clean as slate of any feeling, any emotion. He was alone. Even Tas was gone. There was no one he could turn to for advice, no one to make his decisions for him anymore. And then, he realized, he didn’t need anyone. Not to make this decision.
Now he knew, now he understood. This is why the mages had sent him back. They knew the truth. They wanted him to learn it for himself. His twin was lost, never to be reclaimed. Raistlin must die.
16
None slept in Istar that night.
The storm increased in fury until it seemed it must destroy everything in its path. The wind’s keening was like the deadly wail of the banshee, piercing even the continuous crashing of the thunder. Splintered lightning danced among the streets, trees exploded at its fiery touch. Hail rattled and bounced among the streets, knocking bricks and stones from houses, shattering the thickest glass, allowing the wind and rain to rush into homes like savage conquerors. Flood waters roared through the streets, carrying away the market stalls, the slave pens, carts and carriages.
Yet, no one was hurt.
It was as if the gods, in this last hour, held their hands cupped protectively over the living; hoping, begging them to heed the warnings.
At dawn, the storm ceased. The world was suddenly filled with a profound silence. The gods waited, not even daring to breathe, lest they miss the one small cry that might yet save the world.
The sun rose in a pale blue, watery sky. No bird sang to welcome it, no leaves rustled in the morning breeze, for there was no morning breeze. The air was still and deathly calm. Smoke rose from the smoldering trees in straight lines to the heavens, the flood waters dwindled away rapidly as though whisked down a huge drain. The people crept outdoors, staring around in disbelief that there was not more damage and then, exhausted from sleepless nights preceding, went back to their beds.
But there was, after all, one person in Istar who slept peacefully through the night. The sudden silence, in fact, woke him up.
As Tasslehoff Burrfoot was fond of recounting—he had talked to spooks in Darken Wood, met several dragons (flown on two), come very near the accursed Shoikan Grove (how near improved with each telling), broke a dragon orb, and had been personally responsible for the defeat of the Queen of Darkness (with some help). A mere thunderstorm, even the likes of a thunderstorm such as this one, wasn’t likely to frighten him, much less disturb his sleep.
It had been a simple matter to retrieve the magical device. Tas shook his head over Caramon’s naive pride in the cleverness of his hiding place. Tas had refrained from telling the big man, but that false bottom could have been detected by any kender over the age of three.
Tas lifted the magical device out of the box eagerly, staring at it with wonder and delight. He had forgotten how charming and lovely it was, folded down into an oval pendant. It seemed impossible that his hands would transform it into a device that would perform such a miracle!
Hurriedly, Tas went over Raistlin’s instructions in his mind. The mage had given them to him only a few days before and had made him memorize them—figuring that Tas would promptly lose written instructions, as Raistlin had told him caustically.
They were not difficult, and Tas had them in moments.
The device was so beautiful, Tas could have lingered, admiring it, for long moments. But he didn’t have long moments, so he hastily thrust it into one of his pouches, grabbed his other pouches (just in case he found anything worth carrying along—or anything found him), put on his cloak and hurried out. On the way, he thought about his last conversation with the mage just a few days previous.
“‘Borrow’ the object the night before,” Raistlin had counseled him. “The storm will be frightening, and Caramon might take it into his head to leave. Besides, it will be easiest for you to slip into the room known as the Sacred Chamber of the Temple unnoticed while the storm rages. The storm will end in the morning, and then the Kingpriest and his ministers will begin the processional. They will be going to the Sacred Chamber, and it is there that the Kingpriest will make his demands of the gods.