CHAPTER 18

Crysania neither saw nor heard Tasslehoff. Her mind was blinded by a myriad colors that swirled within its depths, sparkling like splendid jewels, for suddenly she understood. This was why Paladine had brought her back here—not to redeem the memory of the Kingpriest—but to learn from his mistakes. And she knew, she knew in her soul, that she had learned. She could call upon the gods and they would answer—not with anger—but with power! The cold darkness within her broke open, and the freed creature sprang from its shell, bursting into the sunlight.

In a vision, she saw herself—one hand holding high the medallion of Paladine, its platinum flashing in the sun. With her other hand, she called forth legions of believers, and they swarmed around her with adoring, rapt expressions as she led them to lands of beauty beyond imagining.

She didn't have the Key yet to unlock the door, she knew. And it could not happen here, the wrath of the gods was too great for her to penetrate. But where to find the Key, where to find the door, even? The dancing colors made her dizzy, she could not see or think. And then she heard a voice, a small voice, and felt hands clutching at her robes. "Raistlin . . ." she heard the voice say, the rest of the words were lost. But suddenly her mind cleared. The colors vanished, as did the light, leaving her alone in the darkness that was calm and soothing to her soul.

"Raistlin," she murmured. "He tried to tell me . . .."

Still the hands clutched at her. Absently, she disengaged them and thrust them aside. Raistlin would take her to the Portal, he would help her find the Key. Evil turns in upon itself, Elistan said. So Raistlin would unwittingly help her. Crysania's soul sang in a joyous anthem to Paladine. When I return in my glory, with goodness in my hand, when all the evil in the world is vanquished, then Raistlin himself will see my might, he will come to understand and believe.

"Crysania!"

The ground shook beneath Crysania's feet, but she did not notice the tremor. She heard a voice call her name, a soft voice, broken by coughing.

"Crysania." It spoke again. "There is not much time. Hurry!"

Raistlin's voice! Looking around wildly, Crysania searched for him, but she saw no one. And then she realized, he was speaking to her mind, guiding her. "Raistlin," she murmured, "I hear you. I am coming."

Turning, she ran down the aisle and out into the Temple. The kender's cry behind her fell on deaf ears.

"Raistlin?" said Tas, puzzled, glancing around. Then he understood. Crysania was going to Raistlin! Somehow, magically, he was calling to her and she was going to find him! Tasslehoff dashed out into the corridor of the Temple after Crysania. Surely, she would make Raistlin fix the device . . .

Once in the corridor, Tas glanced up and down and spotted Crysania quickly. But his heart nearly jumped out on the floor—she was running so swiftly she had nearly reached the end of the hall.

Making certain the broken pieces of the magical device were secure in his pouch, Tas ran grimly after Crysania, keeping her fluttering white robes in his sight for as long as possible.

Unfortunately, that wasn't very long. She immediately vanished around a corner.

The kender ran as he had never run before, not even when the imagined terrors of Shoikan Grove had been chasing him. His topknot of hair streamed out behind him, his pouches bounced around wildly, spilling their contents, leaving behind a glittering trail of rings and baubles.

Keeping a firm grip on the pouch with the magical device, Tas reached the end of the hall and skidded around it, slamming up against the opposite wall in his haste. Oh, no! His heart went from jumping around in his chest to land with a thud at his feet. He began to wish irritably that his heart would stay put. Its gyrations were making him nauseous.

The hall was filled with clerics, all dressed in white robes! How was he ever to spot Crysania? Then he saw her, about half-way down the hall, her black hair shining in the torchlight. He saw, too, that clerics swirled about in her wake, shouting or glowering after her as she ran by.

Tas leaped to the pursuit, hope rising again; Crysania had been necessarily slowed in her wild flight by the crowd of people in the Temple. The kender sped past them, ignoring cries of outrage, skipping out the way of grasping hands.

“Crysania,” he yelled desperately.

The crowd of clerics in the hall became thicker, everyone hurrying out to wonder about the strange trembling of the ground, trying to guess what this portended.

Tas saw Crysania halt more than once, pushing her way through the crowd. She had freed herself when Quarath came around the corner, calling for the Kingpriest. Not watching where she was going, Crysania ran into him, and he caught hold of her.

“Stop! My dear,” Quarath cried, shaking her, thinking her hysterical. “Calm yourself!”

“Let me go!” Crysania struggled in his grasp.

“She’s gone mad with terror! Help me hold her!” Quarath called to several clerics standing nearby.

It suddenly occurred to Tas that Crysania did look mad. He could see her face as he drew near her, now. Her black hair was a tangled mess, her eyes were deep, deep gray, the color of the storm clouds, and her face was flushed with exertion. She seemed to hear nothing, no voices penetrated her consciousness, except, perhaps, one.

Other clerics caught hold of her at Quarath’s command. Screaming incoherently, Crysania fought them, too. Desperation gave her strength, she came close to escaping more than once. Her white robea tore in their hands as they tried to hold her, Tas thought he saw blood on more than one cleric’s face. Running up, he was about to leap on the back of the nearest cleric and bop him over the head when he was blinded by a brilliant light that brought everyone – even Crysania – to a halt.

No one moved. All Tas could hear for a moment were Crysania’s gasps for breath and the heavy breathing of those who had tried to stop her. Then a voice spoke.

“The gods come,” said the musical voice from out the center of the light, “at my command – “

The ground beneath Tasslehoff’s feet leaped high in the air, tossing the kender up like a feather. It sank rapidly as Tas was going up, then flew up to meet him as he was coming down. The kender slammed into the floor, the impact knocking the breath from his small body.

The air exploded with dust and glass and splinters, screams and shrieks and crashes. Tas could do nothing except fight to try to breathe. Lying on the marble floor as it jumped and rocked and shook beneath him, walls split, pillars fell, and people died.

The Temple of Istar was collapsing.

Crawling forward on his hands and knees, Tas tried desperately to keep Crysania in sight. She seemed oblivious to what was happening around her. Those who had been holding her let go in their terror, and Crysania, still hearing only Raistlin’s voice, started on her way again. Tas yelled. Quarath was lunging at her, but, even as the cleric hurtled towards her, a huge marble column next to her toppled and fell.

Tas caught his breath. He couldn’t see a thing for an instant, then the marble dust settled. Quarath was nothing but a bloody mass on the floor. Crysania, apparently unhurt, stood staring dazedly down at the elf, whose blood had spattered all over her white robes.

“Crysania!” Tasslehoff shouted hoarsely. But she didn’t notice him. Turning away, she stumbled through the wreckage, unseeing, hearing nothing but the voice that called to her more urgently now than ever.

Staggering to his feet, his body bruised and aching, Tas ran after her. Nearing the end of the hall, he saw Crysania make a turn to her right and go down a flight of stairs. Before he followed her, Tas risked a quick look behind him, drawn by a terrible curiosity. The brilliant light still filled the corridor, illuminating the bodies of the dead and dying. Cracks gaped in the Temple walls, the ceiling sagged, dust choked the air. And within that light, Tas could still hear the voice, only now its lovely music had faded. It sounded harsh, shrill, and off-key.

"The gods come . . .. "

Outside the great arena, running through Istar, Caramon fought his way through death-choked streets. Much like Crysania's, his mind, too, heard Raistlin's voice. But it was not calling to him. No, Caramon heard it as he had heard it in their mother's womb, he heard the voice of his twin, the voice of the blood they shared.

And so Caramon paid no heed to the screams of the dying, or the pleas for help from those trapped beneath the wreckage. He paid no heed to what was happening around him. Buildings tumbled down practically on top of him, stones plummeted into the streets, narrowly missing him. His arms and upper body were soon bleeding from small, jagged cuts. His legs were gashed in a hundred places.

But he did not stop. He did not even feel the pain. Climbing over debris, lifting giant beams of wood and hurling them out of his way, Caramon slowly made his way through the dying streets of Istar to the Temple that gleamed in the sun before him. In his hand, he carried a bloodstained sword.

Tasslehoff followed Crysania down, down, down into the very bowels of the ground—or so it seemed to the kender. He hadn't even known such places in the Temple existed, and he wondered how he had come to miss all these hidden staircases in his much rambling. He wondered, too, how Crysania came to know of their existence. She passed through secret doors that were not visible even to Tas's kender eyes.

The earthquake ended, the Temple shook a moment longer in horrified memory, then shivered and was still once more. Outside was death and chaos, but inside all was still and silent. It seemed to Tas as if everything in the world was holding its breath, waiting . . ..

Down here—wherever here was—Tas saw little damage, perhaps because it was so far beneath the ground. Dust clouded the air, making it hard to breathe or see and occasionally a crack appeared in a wall, or a torch fell to the floor. But most of the torches were still in their sconces on the wall, still burning, casting an eerie glow in the drifting dust.

Crysania never paused or hesitated, but pressed on rapidly, though Tas soon lost all sense of direction or of where he was. He had managed to keep up with her fairly easily, but he was growing more and more tired and hoped that they would get to wherever they were going soon. His ribs hurt dreadfully. Each breath he drew burned like fire, and his legs felt like they must belong to a thick-legged, iron-shod dwarf.

He followed Crysania down another flight of marble stairs, forcing his aching muscles to keep moving. Once at the bottom, Tas looked up wearily and his heart rose for a change. They were in a dark, narrow hallway that ended, thankfully, in a wall, not another staircase!

Here, a single torch burned in a sconce above a darkened doorway.

With a glad cry, Crysania hurried through the doorway, vanishing into the darkness beyond.

"Of course!" Tas realized thankfully. "Raistlin's laboratory! It must be down here."

Hurrying forward, he was very near the door when a great, dark shape bore down on him from him behind, tripping him. Tas tumbled to the floor, the pain in his ribs making him catch his breath.

Looking up, fighting the pain, the kender saw the flash of golden armor and the torchlight glisten upon the blade of a sword. He recognized the man’s bronze, muscular body, but the man's face—the face that should have been so familiar— was the face of someone Tas had never seen before.

"Caramon?" he whispered as the man surged past him. But Caramon neither saw him nor heard him. Frantically, Tas tried to stand up.

Then the aftershock hit and the ground rocked out from beneath Tas's feet. Lurching back against a wall, he heard a cracking sound above him and saw the ceiling start to give way.

"Caramon!" he cried, but his voice was lost in the sound of wood tumbling down on top of him, knocking him in the head. Tas struggled to stay conscious, despite the pain. But his brain, as if stubbornly refusing to have anything more to do with this mess, snuffed out the lights. Tas sank into darkness.