“Too late? No!” Tas cried in anguish. “We can’t be!”
“Look, Tas,” Caramon said sadly. “Look at her eyes. She’s blind. Blind! Just as blind as I was in the Tower of High Sorcery. She cannot see through the light... .”
“We’ve got to try to talk to her, Caramon!” Tas clutched at him frantically. “We can’t let her go. It—it’s my fault! I’m the one who told her about Bupu! She might not have come if it hadn’t been for me! I’ll talk to her!”
The kender leaped forward, waving his arms. But he was jerked back suddenly by Caramon, who caught hold of him by his tassel of hair. Tas yelped in pain and protest, and—at the sound—Raistlin turned.
The archmage stared over at his twin and the kender for an instant without seeming to recognize them. Then recognition dawned in his eyes. It was not pleasant.
“Hush, Tas,” Caramon whispered. “It’s not your fault. Now, stay put!” Caramon thrust the kender behind a thick, granite pillar. “Stay there,” the big man ordered. “Keep the pendant safe—and yourself, too.”
Tas’s mouth opened to argue. Then he saw Caramon’s face and, looking down the corridor, he saw Raistlin. Something came over the kender. He felt as he had in the Abyss—wretched and frightened. “Yes, Caramon,” he said softly. “I’ll stay here. I-I promise... .”
Leaning against the pillar, shivering, Tas could see in his mind poor Gnimsh lying crumpled on the cell floor.
Giving the kender a final, warning glance, Caramon turned and limped down the corridor toward where his brother stood.
Gripping the Staff of Magius in his hand, Raistlin watched him warily. “So you survived,” he commented.
“Thanks to the gods, not you,” Caramon replied.
“Thanks to one god, my dear brother,” Raistlin said with a slight, twisted smile. “The Queen of Darkness. She sent the kender back here, and it was he, I presume, who altered time, allowing your life to be spared. Does it gall you, Caramon, to know you owe your life to the Dark Queen?”
“Does it gall you to know you owe her your soul?”
Raistlin’s eyes flashed, their mirrorlike surface cracking for just an instant. Then, with a sardonic smile, he turned away. Facing the Portal, he lifted his right hand and held it palm out, his gaze upon the dragon’s head at the lower right of the oval shaped entrance.
“Black Dragon.” His voice was soft, caressing. “From darkness to darkness/My voice echoes in the emptiness.”
As Raistlin spoke these words, an aura of darkness began to form around Crysania, an aura of light as black as the nightjewel, as black as the light of the dark moon...
Raistlin felt Caramon’s hand close over his arm. Angrily, he tried to shake off his brother’s grasp, but Caramon’s grip was strong.
“Take us home, Raistlin...”
Raistlin turned and stared, his anger forgotten in his astonishment. “What?” His voice cracked.
“Take us home,” Caramon repeated steadily.
Raistlin laughed contemptuously.
“You are such a weak, sniveling fool, Caramon!” he snarled. Irritably he tried to shake off his twin’s grip. He might as well have tried to shake off death. “Surely you must know by now what I have done! The kender must have told you about the gnome. You know I betrayed you. I would have left you for dead in this wretched place. And still you cling to me!”
“I’m clinging to you because the waters are closing over your head, Raistlin,” Caramon said.
His gaze went down to his own, strong, sun-burned hand holding his brother’s thin wrist, its bones as fragile as the bones of a bird, its skin white, almost transparent. Caramon fancied he could see the blood pulse in the blue veins.
“My hand upon your arm. That’s all we have.” Caramon paused and drew a deep breath. Then, his voice deep with sorrow, he continued, “Nothing can erase what you have done, Raist. It can never be the same between us. My eyes have been opened. I now see you for what you are.”
“And yet you beg me to come with you!” Raistlin sneered.
“I could learn to live with the knowledge of what you are and what you have done.” Looking intently into his brother’s eyes, Caramon said softly, “But you have to live with yourself, Raistlin. And there are times in the night when that must be damn near unbearable.”
Raistlin did not respond. His face was a mask, impenetrable, unreadable.
Caramon swallowed a huskiness in his throat. His grip on his twin’s arm tightened. “Think of this, though. You have done good in your life, Raistlin—maybe better than most of us. Oh, I’ve helped people. It’s easy to help someone when that help is appreciated: But you helped those who only threw it back in your face. You helped those who didn’t deserve it. You helped even when you knew it was hopeless, thankless.” Caramon’s hand trembled. “There’s still good you could do… to make up for the evil. Leave this. Come home.”
Come home...come home...
Raistlin closed his eyes, the ache in his heart almost unendurable. His left hand stirred, lifted. Its delicate fingers hovered near his brother’s hand, touching it for an instant with a touch as soft as the feet of a spider. On the edges of reality, he could hear Crysania’s soft voice, praying to Paladine. The lovely white light flickered upon his eyelids.
Come home...
When Raistlin spoke next, his voice was soft as his touch. “The dark crimes that stain my soul, brother, you cannot begin to imagine. If you knew, you would turn from me in horror and in loathing.” He sighed, shivering slightly. “And, you are right. Sometimes, in the night, even I turn from myself.”
Opening his eyes, Raistlin stared fixedly into his brother’s. “But, know this, Caramon—I committed those crimes intentionally, willingly. Know this, too—there are darker crimes before me, and I will commit them, intentionally, willingly...” His gaze went to Crysania, standing unseeing in the Portal, lost in her prayers, shimmering with beauty and power.
Caramon looked at her and his face grew grim.
Raistlin, watching, smiled. “Yes, my brother. She will enter the Abyss with me. She will go before me and fight my battles. She will face dark clerics, dark magic-users, spirits of the dead doomed to wander in that cursed land, plus the unbelievable torments that my Queen can devise. All these will wound her in body, devour her mind, and shred her soul. Finally, when she can endure no more, she will slump to the ground to lie at my feet... bleeding, wretched, dying.
“She will, with her last strength, hold out her hand to me for comfort. She will not ask me to save her. She is too strong for that. She will give her life for me willingly, gladly. All she will ask is that I stay with her as she dies.”
Raistlin drew a deep breath, then shrugged. “But I will walk past her, Caramon. I will walk past her without a look, without a word. Why? Because I will need her no longer. I will continue forward toward my goal, and my strength will grow even as the blood flows from her pierced heart.”
Half-turning, once again he raised his left hand, palm outward. Looking at the head of the dragon upon the top of the Portal, he softly said the second chant. “White Dragon. From this world to the next / My voice cries with life.”
Caramon’s gaze was on the Portal, on Crysania, his mind swamped by horror and revulsion. Still he held onto his brother. Still he thought to make one last plea. Then he felt the thin arm beneath his hand make a sharp, twisting motion. There was a flash, a swift movement, and the gleaming blade of a silver dagger pressed against the flesh of his throat, right where his life’s blood pulsed in his neck.
“Let go of me, my brother,” Raistlin said.
And though he did not strike with the dagger, it drew blood anyway; drew blood not from flesh but from soul. Quickly and cleanly, it sliced through the last spiritual tie between the twins. Caramon winced slightly at the swift, sharp pain in his heart. But the pain did not endure. The tie was severed. Free at last, Caramon released his twin’s arm without a word.